Blood In The Night
by SGE
Summary: So, Nina's a werewolf, everyone else is still what they are, and someone is after them. But who, and why? Sequel to Now There Were Monsters, but you could probably get away with not reading that first.
1. Chapter 1

Thanks to all who read and reviewed Now There Were Monsters! This is a sequel, just as dark, so look out for bad language and plenty of angst.

It's unbeta'd, cause I couldn't get anyone to beta it, so apologies for any mistakes.

Disclaimer – Being Human and all its lovely characters belong to Toby Whithouse. No infringement is intended, and certainly no financial benefit is being made.

***

_Prologue_

The man had short grey hair, balding badly, and a crumpled grey face that had seen a lot of life, and hadn't necessarily liked what it had looked at. The sole occupant of the large, low-roofed warehouse, he eyed its dark corners, satisfied with the set-up, and satisfied also that his boss would be happy. It was, after all, everything he'd asked for: isolated yet within the city, secure where it needed to be, and with plenty of room for their equipment and its appropriate staff.

And there would be a lot of them this time.

Truth be told, he hated being on the move, but he acknowledged also that it was sometimes necessary. It wasn't like these things were always going to come to them, and as long as they could set up a situation like this that was secure, then the risk was minimal. They'd only had one death so far and he was anxious to keep it that way. It was always so difficult to explain that sort of thing to the appropriate authorities. Twice would look downright suspicious.

"You have the lab set up already?"

The man turned. He hadn't heard anyone come into the room with him. But when he saw who it was, his spine stiffened slightly, an almost involuntary movement, but one that annoyed him all the same,

"No sir, but it's being brought down as we speak. Don't worry about it."

"Worry – I have nothing to do but worry, Kemp." The man looked around the room, nodding to himself. "It's a good set up, though. You've done well. Is Jane out checking on our new subject?"

"She is."

"And still nothing to suggest any raised anxiety?"

"Nothing at all. In fact, I believe that when we are ready we can move things along at any pace we chose."

"Well – let's not get ahead of ourselves. We don't know how this one is going to play. It's not exactly our usual style."

The man smiled. "Quite. But I think it safe to assume that we will be more than a match for anything that is thrown at us."

"Hm, yes. Having the factor of surprise on your side usually helps." He took a final look round and then turned on his heel. "Very good. Let me know when we're good to go, and I'll be here waiting."

"Very good sir," Kemp said quietly, looking around as well, his heart fluttering slightly. This was going to be new; this was going to be exciting. It always was with a new subject.

Only this time, there would be two.


	2. Chapter 2

Keys jangled in the front door of the slightly shabby looking corner terraced house. It was a pink house, for some reason known only to the painters who had bestowed such a bright and unusual colour upon it. It wasn't like every house in the street was equally garish in its decoration, nor indeed, that the occupants of the house were screaming queens who felt the need to declare this to the world by painting their little corner of England the totem colour of homosexuality. It was just pink in the way some houses are.

The girl entering the front door, and therefore jangling her keys in its lock, was a nurse, in the way that some people are nurses. It wasn't obvious to everybody who knew her, not least her family, why she'd chosen to become a nurse. Clearly she was well qualified and in the hospital where she worked, she'd climbed the ladder faster than most; her organizational skills and leadership qualities, to say nothing of her no-nonsense manner and ability to withstand extraordinary amounts of stress, standing her in good stead with her superiors and getting her noticed by those who mattered. But a nurse, however high they climbed the ladder, was still a nurse - as her mother often reminded her. They still stood on the sidelines while the doctors gave the orders. They still tied the bandages and injected the drugs while the doctors wrote the notes and calculated the doses and actually did the curing of the patients.

But conversations with her mother about the disappointment of her chosen profession were a million miles from Nina's brain these days. She looked around her as she went in through the door of the pink house, checking to see if there was anyone around, and seeing nothing but the empty living room, empty stairwell and empty hall.

"George?" she called. "Are you home?"

A face appeared in the little archway that led to the downstairs kitchen, the face of a girl who was a long-time occupant of the house, but who could hardly be said to live there.

"Oh hiya," Annie called cheerily. "I don't think he's back from work yet."

"Oh," Nina said back to her. "Um…" she still felt awkward being in the house without George, as if she didn't quite belong.

"He shouldn't be long," Annie went on, disappearing back into the kitchen.

"Okay," Nina closed the door behind her, trying to accept her place in the pink house, as she'd accepted her profession, as she'd accepted what George was. And what he had changed her into.

She took off her coat and hung it on the back of a chair in the hallway before going into the kitchen to face up to the awkwardness

The girl there was wearing grey: grey leggings, grey boots, grey cardigan. It was all just grey and colourless. And Nina had never seen her change. She was such a pretty girl in a frozen, timeless sort of way, much more glamorous that Nina ever felt herself. But she never changed; she'd reached a dead end, literally. It's what happened when you died, Nina supposed. That forward motion that takes us through life and that keeps altering who we are had ceased to function for Annie. Being a ghost meant going nowhere, and the thought of it freaked Nina out more than she cared to mention.

But Annie was still bubbly, still outgoing. Nothing dead about her personality.

"Would you like some tea?" she said, moving towards the kettle.

"Uh, no, thank you," Nina declined. She actually didn't like tea that much, and every time she came in this kitchen with Annie, she would offer her a cup, despite the fact she would never accept.

Not that Annie seemed bothered.

"So," she said cheerily as Nina plonked herself down on one of their kitchen chairs. "How's the whole werewolf thing going?"

Nina looked at her in surprise, not at the question so much, but at the casual, throwaway manner in which it had been put. "Oh it's – hideous," she shot back, not really having a lot of time for casual questions.

"Really? Is it that bad?"

"You know something about the process, don't you?"

"Well, I've seen it, but none of us really – we don't talk about it."

"Mm," Nina found that easy enough to believe. Three supernaturals living in a house together. They probably didn't sit around all day talking about silver bullets and garlic and all that. Each of them had their own issues, and when things came up she imagined that they would be there for each other, and learn through a process of osmosis.

But she was still new to this, and relied almost entirely on George to feed her information about this world that she'd found herself in. And he wasn't always forthcoming.

"Well it's not nice," she continued from what she'd been saying. "But it's – it's something I'm learning to live with."

"Good," Annie said firmly.

Then a small, uncomfortable silence broke out as the two girls sat there, unsure what to say. They weren't, after all, particularly close. They didn't know much about each other. And from the little they both knew, neither was 100% sure they wanted to know more.

"How did you – " Nina began.

"So you're off – " Annie said at exactly the same time.

They stopped, embarrassed.

"You go," Nina said.

"No, it's okay," Annie countered.

"No really, what were you going to say?" Nina asked, slightly exasperated.

"I was just going to ask about this trip you're going on," Annie said quickly. "George says you're going to your mum's?"

"Yeah, it's her 60th birthday," Nina confirmed. "She's having this big party and all the family's going to be there, all her neighbours and friends and ex-colleagues. It's going to be a big affair."

"And that's in Kent?"

"Yeah, Seven Oaks," Nina said.

"Are they all excited, your parents?" Annie wondered. "Or are they just getting all stressed about it? My parents used to hold these huge family gatherings and for days before it would just be: who's buying what, when's Auntie Freda flying in, where's Uncle Pete going to stay."

"Oh, well my dad died when I was quite young," Nina corrected her. "So my mum's pretty much doing it on her own. Though her sister's helping out a lot. She's quite well off, so she'll just buy in the catering and stuff, takes a lot of the stress out."

Annie was never sure, when someone was talking about a family death from years gone by, whether the convention was to offer sympathy or not. The hurt after all, was long since gone. So she just asked: "What does your mum do?"

"She's a consultant nephrologist," Nina said.

"Wow," Annie was impressed. "I take it that's a doctor of sorts? Medicine obviously runs in your family."

"Yeah," Nina nodded, aware that what she called a medical profession and what her mum called a medical profession were quite emphatically different. Dimly she remembered overhearing her mother at her brother's wedding telling a friend: "Of course, I always had such high hopes for Nina, but she just never seemed to be able to commit to anything."

"And you're not taking George? To the party I mean."

She snapped back. "Oh, um, no – I – I haven't told my family that I'm in a – relationship so… It's just we have a – we don't talk so much any more, my mother and I, and it would just be," she stammered over her words. "It would be weird. And – and I feel bad about it, "she suddenly started rambling. "Because I know George isn't a porter through choice or anything, and I'm not embarrassed to be dating a porter, and there's nothing wrong with being a porter it's just I don't want to expose him to – y'know, the scrutiny of a family examination. Particularly when it's my family."

Annie smiled sympathetically. "I'm sure he understands," she said.

Nina matched her expression, but wasn't sure she agreed. George had seemed more than a little hurt when she'd told him that she was going away on her own. But it wasn't like he'd introduced her to his family. Or even told her anything about his family.

"So, what were you going to ask me?" Annie wondered.

"It – it doesn't matter," Nina said, feeling a bit self-conscious now, and distracted from her previous line of thought.

"No, come on," Annie said. "It's nice to get the chance to talk like this. The two of us, we never hang out. We never do anything together. So ask me anything you want, I don't mind."

"Alright then," Nina considered her. "I was going to ask you, well, how you died actually."

"Oh. You mean George – hasn't told you?"

"No."

"Well – my fiancé, ex-fiancé, pushed me down the stairs."

Nina was stunned. "You were murdered!"

"Well," Annie didn't like to argue over semantics, particularly when it came to her own death. "I was killed. I can't say for definite whether Owen meant to do it. But he certainly pushed me."

"My God," Nina was stunned. "Did they arrest him? He's in jail, right?"

"Nope," Annie said lightly, shaking her head. "Got away with it, twisted little – sod. Still I got him in the end."

Nina looked at her questioningly. "How?"

"Good old-fashioned haunting," she said. "Scared him half to death. Sent him clean mad you know. He's in a secure unit for the insane now. I just found out a few weeks ago."

"Jesus," Nina looked down at the table. All this time her automatic reaction to Annie had been one of annoyance. Getting past the awkward frozen-in-time thing, Annie was too bouncy and bubbly for her, too ready to please, too precious. She'd felt absolutely no kinship with her, like they were a different species. She'd never even imagined that they'd had this in common. "Had he been abusive before – your fiancé?"

Annie smiled again, but sadly. "He'd been – he was always – hot and cold," she explained. "He wasn't, you know, that classic drunk abusive boyfriend you always see in films and stuff. That guy who comes home from the pub and slaps his wife around. It was more, psychological I guess. He was unpredictable. For weeks he'd be fine and we'd be getting along and then he'd just – turn suddenly. I always thought it was my fault. That the things I did drove him to it. But, it wasn't that at all. It was just him."

Nina met her eye sympathetically, and reached across the table, putting it on top of her icy cold one.

"Men can be bastards," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Annie agreed, and wiped away a stray tear that had gathered in her eye as she talked and then dripped rebelliously down her cheek. Then she purposefully changed the tone of the conversation. "But not all men. At least you've landed yourself a good one."

"I'm very lucky," Nina agreed, taking her hand back. "It's not exactly what you might call a conventional relationship, but it seems to work."

"George is just so sweet," Annie said.

"Yes he is," Nina agreed, smiling at the thought of him, and all those little things he did that touched her heart.

"And the – sex seems good?" Annie wondered.

"Yes," she said decisively. "Very good."

"Certainly sounds that way," Annie said, obviously amused by the concept.

Nina looked at her: "What?"

"The werewolf sex," Annie whispered coyly. "It sounds good."

Nina's mouth fell open. There was something about British society that was so full of shame, that even when having loud, violent, obvious, sex, people told themselves that no one noticed. They imagined that they were somehow having all that loud, violent, obvious sex in a bubble where no one could hear them and no one knew. And even though they'd trashed George's room twice now, Nina had told herself that Annie and Mitchell wouldn't have worked out what was going on.

Well, that idea was obviously a bust.

"Uh, well," she spluttered. "It's uh…"

But she was saved any further embarrassment by a loud knock on the front door. She shot to her feet, smiling at the interruption.

"Why don't I get that," she suggested, and bolted from the room, breathing a sigh of relief. She yanked open the front door, barely even concentrating. "Yes?"

The man outside had been looking down the street when the door opened, but he turned as soon as it did. "Hello," he said. "What have we here?"

He must have been in his late 30s or early 40s, not too tall, but stocky and with an air of knowing how to look after himself and get what he wanted out of life. He was wearing a grubby dark blue tracksuit, and a white hat in a style that she was pretty sure had gone out of fashion over 10 years before. His round face was open, slightly stubbled, but marred by three long scars which ran diagonally across his forehead and down onto his nose. She felt an instant pity for him, the way she did for anyone with scars, but particularly those with such obvious ones. We present our faces to the world every day, and there was no hiding any imperfections. Her scars were a dark secret, one she revealed to few people in her life, even her closest friends. This man had no choice, his were on constant display, and everyone he met would judge him on those marks first before they took anything else into consideration.

"Can I help you?" Nina asked, trying to keep her eyes fixed on his eyes so that they didn't drift to the rest of his face.

"I certainly hope so darling," the man said in a gentle voice, with just a slightly rough edge. He flashed a charming smile at her. "I'm looking for George Sands. Does he still live here?"

"Uh, yeah," she said, wondering how on earth this man was connected to George. "But he's not in."

"Right. Well, maybe I could come back later? Do you know when he'll be back?"

"Oh, I'm not really not that sure," she said vaguely, not wanting to give away George's movements to a stranger.

The man's eyes narrowed a bit, and he looked at her a bit more sharply, tipping his head to the side. "Have we met before?" he asked.

Nina frowned. She had actually been thinking that there was something vaguely familiar about him, but she met so many people at the hospital, that faces just became a blur. But while she wasn't always very good with faces, she thought she would have remembered those scars. "I don't think so," she hedged.

Then realization came over the man's face. "You work at the hospital," he stated. "I saw you there, you were talking to George one time when I was there. Oh my God!" he looked shocked, but in a slightly comical way, as though he was putting it on. "He didn't actually manage to get you on a date, did he? Are you two together now?"

"Oh!" Nina suddenly remembered. "You were there that time George tried to ask me out – well I say ask me out, he did rather crash and burn," she smiled at the memory. How different that moment seemed now that she knew George so well. "Yes, he did get me in the end."

"Good for him," the man looked impressed. "My advice obviously rubbed off."

Nina's smile widened, as she considered the ridiculousness of that statement, and tried to imagine this track-suited man teaching George anything helpful about the ways of love.

But then suddenly the man, who was still looking at her intently, frowned. One second he was standing harmlessly on the street, the next he had surged forward and was inches from her body. She heard him sniff deeply, before she stumbled backwards into the house, shocked and feeling a pang of fear at the sudden shift in the situation.

The man seemed to consider her smell, and sniffed quietly a couple more times, before reaching a conclusion. "Oh my God!" he said, his eyes flicking up and fixing her with an intense gaze. "He certainly did get you, didn't he?" He followed her inside.

"What do you mean?" Nina demanded, taken aback.

Then Annie walked out of the kitchen. She stopped, short. "Tully," she spat the word, like it was something foul tasting that she'd accidentally put in her mouth and wanted to expel as quickly as possible.

The man she'd called Tully looked up and saw her, his face breaking into a smile once more. "Hello Annie," he said. "Did you miss me?"

"Hardly!" she said scornfully, though she started slightly at the sight of his face. "What are you doing in our house?"

"I came to see George," he replied cockily. "Thought it was about time we caught up."

"Well you can do it somewhere else!" Annie shot back, trying to sound firm, but Nina thought she could detect a definite quiver in her voice. "And what I mean by that is, get the hell out of here!"

Sensing her fear, but not knowing what to think, Nina looked between the ghost and the man, wanting their conflict far away from her. But the man looked strong, and she didn't think that even the combined efforts of herself and Annie would be enough to eject him forcibly from this house if that was what was required. She took her phone out of her pocket. "I'll call the police," she said to Annie.

Tully gave her a scornful look. "The police? I haven't done anything," he said.

"You forced your way in here," Nina reminded him.

"Please," he said sarcastically, taking a step towards her. "You wanted me to come in here."

"What do you mean?" she said, feeling her moon-enhanced senses suddenly jangle with sensation.

"Tully, get out," Annie seemed to realize what was going on, and moved closer.

But Tully wasn't deterred. "You sense your own kind," he muttered to Nina, moving even closer to her. He filled her nostrils, the scent of him, his sweat, and she could feel her face flushing with uncontrolled desire. "There are few men who can satisfy what you need right now," he went on, looking her face up and down closely, intimately. "What you want."

She heard Annie say Tully again, but she wasn't really listening any more. All she was aware of was this man in front of her, this man who had suddenly and unexpectedly aroused her in a way she didn't think she could control. It was basic, animalistic, feral. He was right. She wanted him, oh my god how she wanted him, right there, right now, where the world could see. And it disgusted her.

He leaned towards her, and she towards him, the phone in her hand forgotten, Annie forgotten, the world forgotten.

Then suddenly he was gone, ripped away, and she breathed, coming back quickly, and looked around slightly dazed.

Mitchell was in the room, she didn't know where he'd sprung from, but he'd clearly just pulled Tully bodily away from her. His hat was on the floor, and the two were facing off.

"I can't believe you!" he was shouting at the invader. "Are you stupid or something, coming back here. Did you not get the message last time?"

Tully seemed unconcerned by Mitchell's anger. "Easy boy," he said. "What, no hello, no happy to see you?"

"Did you think we'd be happy to see you?" Mitchell said, incredulously. "I mean by the look of things, no one's been pleased to see you recently." He nodded in the direction of Tully's face, and Nina winced at that, still sympathetic, despite what had just happened.

"What, these?" Tully ran his hand over his scars, and a cloud of anger passed over him. "Why don't you ask your friend about them."

"You seriously expect us to believe that George did that to you?" Annie put in, sounding a bit more confident now that Mitchell was in the room.

Tully glanced at her. "Creatures of darkness," he said. "And you all forget what it is that walks among you. Your gentle friend who reads his books and stutters his way through life, is an animal, just like me," he looked over at Nina. "And just like her."

"Get out," Mitchell demanded, gesturing at the door.

Tully squared off in front of him, but then seemed to think better of it and stooped down to scoop up his hat. "Tell George I've got something to tell him," he said. "Something important. This wasn't just a social call," he walked past Mitchell, and spat: "Vampire, " before heading out.

When he was out the door, Mitchell slammed it unceremoniously, and there was a collective sigh, as if they'd all been holding their breaths.

"Are you two alright?" Mitchell asked, looking between Annie and Nina.

"Yeah, I think so," Annie said. "Nina?"

They both looked at the nurse, who didn't look like she was alright in the slightest. She felt confused, angry. "Who the hell was that?" she demanded, looking up to find them both watching her.

"His name's Tully," Mitchell explained. "He came to stay here a few months ago and said he could help George out with stuff, 'managing the condition' he called it."

"He's a - werewolf?" she stumbled slightly over the term. It still sounded silly when she said it.

"Yeah. But once he was here, I dunno, it all got a bit weird. He started acting like a wanker, and wouldn't leave. George stood up for him, but then they had a fight or something, and George said that Tully was gone and wasn't coming back. We never found out what happened between them. He never told us."

"You think George really did that to his face?" Annie wondered.

"What scratched him?" Mitchell shrugged. "Maybe. They could have been done by a werewolf. But that would imply that they were together somehow when they were transforming, or when they were transformed even, and I don't see how that could be. George has always been very emphatic about the fact that two werewolves changing together would end up killing each other. I can't see him taking the risk."

"It was just – being near him," Nina was still focused on Tully's presence. "It felt so… I wanted him, like - wanted him, like I couldn't control myself."

Mitchell was sympathetic. "A few days before a full moon, it's hardly surprising. You must have sensed what he was, even though you didn't understand it."

"But I – oh God, If you hadn't pulled him away, urgh!" she made a disgusted noise and shook her hands out. "I don't know what I would have done."

"Don't beat yourself up," he went over to her. "This – thing that's happened to you. It's so difficult to control."

"But I should be able to," she insisted. "I mean he disgusted me, and feeling like that, I disgusted myself. Oh God, what's George going to say!"

"There's no reason he needs to know," Mitchell said soothingly. "Certainly we won't tell him." He glanced over at Annie.

"But we've got to tell him that Tully was here," she protested.

Mitchell looked between the two girls. "What do you think, Nina?"

She blew out a breath. "Tell him that Tully was here? Yeah I guess we've got to. He knows that George works at the hospital, I saw the two of them there months back. That must have been when he was staying here."

"You've met Tully before?"

She nodded. "I didn't meet him, but I saw him there. He'll just catch up with George there or somewhere else if he doesn't find him here."

"Alright," Mitchell said. "So we'll tell him. But just that he was here. What you tell him about what happened is entirely up to you."


	3. Chapter 3

It was about an hour before sunset when George finally made it to the woods in search of Tully. He'd arrived home not long after his housemates had thrown the older werewolf out, and he'd been furious that Tully had returned to bother them, particularly that he'd bothered Nina. He was so protective of her now, well he'd always been protective, but since this awful thing had happened to her, the curse and all its implications, his protective instincts had gone into overdrive, and he wanted to permanently curl himself around her, snarling and striking at anything that came too close.

That was the werewolf part of him anyway. But even the geeky George part would have fought for her; he would have done anything for her really. Facing off with Tully was nothing. It didn't bother him at all.

Stoking the embers of his anger as he marched through leaves and ducked under low branches, he headed straight for the little hut where they'd had their last confrontation, figuring that it was probably a reasonable place to start even if Tully wasn't actually squatting there right now. His senses were already acutely tuned under the swelling silver moon, and tracking his one-time mentor wouldn't be that hard if he was in the area. If he wasn't, that's where the problems would start. But he was fairly certain that Tully was going to make himself easy to find.

He was right. Tully was waiting for him, and was standing outside the hut leaning nonchalantly against a tree as George approached.

He stopped a fair distance away, feeling the animal rage bubbling away inside, but slamming a lid on it to keep it under control. He didn't want another fight, just for Tully to leave.

"You made it then," Tully spoke from under the shadow of his hat. "That vampire friend of yours actually passed on the message."

"What are you doing here?" George demanded, ignoring the comment.

"Dropped in to say hi," Tully said, smiling. "Thought it was about time we had a – chat."

"What about?" George was keeping his words to a purposeful minimum.

"This and that," Tully moved away from the tree and took his hat off, scrubbing at his closely shaven head with his left hand.

George felt a pang of guilt at the sight of the scars crossing his face, but it was a passing sensation, and he pushed it away. He knew that Tully had brought those scars on himself by forcing a confrontation. Whatever the outcome, he had only himself to blame.

"You're still with your friends, that's good. They must like you a lot."

"Don't talk about them," George stated. "Don't even mention them."

"And that girl you're with…"

"I'm warning you," George said, starting to sound dangerous. "She is off limits."

Tully turned and faced him, cool and calm and clearly feeling well in control of this situation. "Nice little bitch that," he said, provocatively.

George felt a surge of anger, and had to fight to keep himself standing where he was. "Winding me up right now is really not a smart move," he said, darkly. "And talking about Nina – "

"You gave it to her?" he interrupted.

"I scratched her," George shot back.

"By accident?"

George took a slight step forward as his anger surged to the surface and threatened to bubble over. "You think I did that on purpose?" he hissed.

Tully smiled. "So you passed it on," he said. "So what?"

"So what?" George was incredulous. "I ruined her life, just like you ruined mine!"

"It's not like we've got a choice in the matter, George," he pointed out. "It's not for us to decide what happens when the wolf runs free, you know that. You shouldn't blame yourself. I certainly don't."

George just blinked at him. "What – do – you – want?" he demanded, annunciating every word. "Because if you haven't managed to articulate yourself in the next 30 seconds, I'm walking away."

Tully's face changed a little bit, grew more serious suddenly, as if playtime was over and it was time for the real lesson to begin. "I came to warn you," he said, all joking aside.

"Warn me about what?" George was bored with this now, bored with Tully, bored with the verbal tennis, bored with everything. He just wanted to go home and find Nina and enjoy their last night together. All this was simply eating into all of that.

"About a man," Tully went on, putting his hat back on and going back to his tree as if looking for support. "He's a smart type, like you, all university and degrees and crap like that, stuff I never had time for."

"And what's this man got to do with me?"

"It's what he's got to do with all of us that scares me," Tully said, almost appearing to shiver involuntarily.

"Tully," George shut his eyes, and shook his head slightly. "Please just try to make sense, just once, alright. I'm tired, I don't want to be here, and I think I made myself quite clear the last time we met about my feelings on seeing you again. So, seriously, just tell me what the hell you're talking about."

"Alright," Tully agreed, and then he snorted out a little laugh, as if suddenly he found the situation to be funny, ridiculous even. "But I'm telling you now," he went on. "You're not gonna like it."

***

"George, I wish you'd tell me what he said," Nina asked.

They were in bed together in his little room, her curled at his side with an arm crossing protectively across his chest. She felt him sigh.

"It's nothing," he said quietly, happy enough to give up the pretence that he was trying to sleep, but not yet ready to talk about Tully – not in any detail anyway.

"Well it's obviously got you wound up. He must have said something."

George closed his eyes, willing all this not to have happened. But as usual, his will never seemed to be enough. He opened them again. "It's just," he scootched up a bit in the bed and gesticulated with a hand. "He said some stuff about something that's going on. But he didn't tell me enough for me to fully understand it."

"Were you upset to see him again? You seemed to be friends when I saw you that time in the hospital."

"Yeah," George remembered it well enough. "We were. But he lied to me about some stuff. And… Tully's just really manipulative. He had his own agenda when he was here last time and I was too stupid to see it. I suppose I didn't want to see it."

"He figured out – what I was," Nina said, sounding uncomfortable. She was still barely able to accept it herself, having strangers know was something of a trial.

"I know. I'm Sorry," George stroked her hair and attempted a smile. "I should have warned you about him. But I honestly didn't think he'd come back. I told him not to."

"Did you…" she paused, not knowing how he'd react to this question. "Did you - do that to his face?"

She felt him flinch slightly, and he stopped stroking her. "Yeah," he admitted quietly, nodding. "I did."

Sensing his discomfort, but needing to know, she asked: "How did that happen?"

He took his hand back and sat up, all pretence at relaxing or getting ready to sleep now completely gone. He pulled his knees up, the duvet humping over them like great mountains.

"We had a fight," he said.

"A fight?" she sat up as well, looking at him in the darkness, and seeing his face tighten. "Like a physical fight. When you were – changed?"

"He – when we last saw each other – he'd – he tried to kill himself."

It seemed a familiar theme, a cruel motif that followed those that the wolf had taken, and they both sensed that. She reached out and put a hand over his, silently telling him that it was okay, that she understood now.

He looked at her, appreciating it, knowing what it meant, pensive gratitude on his face. "But I don't think he was serious then," he went on. "Not like I was. He waited until I came. We'd found this hut in the woods, you see, when he was here. When he was teaching me things about being a werewolf. We thought it would be good as a base to change from. Anyway, we fell out over – something – and I – well I thought he'd gone. But when I went back to the hut to change that time, he was there waiting." He nodded slightly, the sight of Tully kicking the chair out from beneath him was still one that he could replay exactly, every second of it, as though his brain had recorded it in slow motion and stored it away for retrieval. "He'd – got a noose and – he – he tried to hang himself in front of me. And I left," George laughed a little, hardly believing his own words. "I was about to change – and I was so angry at him for what he'd – for what we'd – argued about – I just walked away and left him there."

Nina looked quietly horrified. "Jesus. And he survived?"

"I went back," George said. "I suddenly came back to myself and realized what I was doing, and I couldn't leave him. So I went back, I got him down." He shut his eyes again. "But the change was so close. It was – it was consuming us. I tried to get out of the hut, I knew we shouldn't be together when we changed, that we'd fight, that we'd kill each other probably. But he stopped me – I think it's what he wanted. For us to fight. He pulled me down, and then he started to change. And then I went as well and – " he shook his head. "I don't know, it's all a bit of a blur, you never remember very well – it's all just the pain and the – pain. But I must have scratched him and got him out somehow. When I woke up in the morning I was in the hut alone and Tully was outside with these scratches on his face. I waited 'till he woke up and then I told him not to come back."

"You didn't tell the others what had happened?"

George shook his head decisively. "They just knew that Tully had gone. I never told them why."

"So why has he come back? Is he angry at you for what happened? He told Mitchell he had something important to tell you?"

"I don't know Nina. I don't know if I can trust him – in fact I know I can't. He's lied to me before and I just – I don't want to even listen to him."

"What did he say though?"

George considered her, Tully's parting words going through his head. "_If I were you I'd run," he'd said. "Take that bitch with you and run where they'll never find you."_

"Nothing important," he said smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "Really. I just want to get some sleep and forget about him."

Nina didn't believe it for a second, but she knew George well enough by now to know that if he didn't want to talk about something, it generally took an extraordinary event to make him. She just hoped, as they snuggled back up together and tried to drop off, that it wouldn't be something they couldn't deal with.


	4. Chapter 4

All three of them, George, Nina and Mitchell, headed to work at the same time the next morning. George wasn't starting at the same time as the others, but he was up anyway, and the pre-work morning had been such a stress, that he'd just decided to give up any attempt at having a relaxing start to the day and tag along. Nina's bag for her trip was stuffed in the small boot of Mitchell's car ('It's a classic,' he'd moaned. 'Storage space wasn't a big thing back then.') and she was chewing on a nail; nervous about going away, about seeing her family, about fighting with her mother, about finding a place to change. About a lot of things.

George was feeding off her nervousness, complaining about Mitchell's driving, and generally winding him up until the vampire was just about ready to strangle him. The journey couldn't be over quick enough for all of them, and they headed into the hospital in terse silence at the other end.

George went to a nearby café to spend the morning, agreeing to meet up with Nina and say goodbye before he started his shift at 11. But at half ten, she texted to say that she was going to have to leave early and go back to the house as they'd manage to leave her train tickets sitting on the kitchen table. George texted back that Annie was quite capable of bringing the tickets to the hospital, and he'd called the ghost and asked her to do just that.

Annie quickly appeared as promised in the reception area of A&E, where she spotted George sitting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, one foot folded under the other.

He jumped up when he saw her, and a smile broke out on his face. "Hey," he said. "Thanks for doing this. She's so stressed about everything this was just the last thing we needed."

"No problem," Annie told him. "It's not like I was doing much else this morning."

"Well – I better get these to her," George said, taking the tickets. "I'm on in 10 minutes."

"Sure," Annie said, but then suddenly turned her head, as though listening for something whispered on a distant breeze. Her eyes left George and, she glanced around the room.

"What is it?" George wondered, turning and following her gaze, but not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

"It's nothing," she said, fixing her look briefly on something across the room, then shaking her head and looking back at him again. "You go."

"Thanks again," he said, nodding, already distracted by the thought of seeing Nina, and the farewells to come. "I really appreciate it."

While he trotted off, Annie's smile faded, and her glance returned to the figure that had drawn her attention before, surprised that George hadn't noticed what she had, but then again, he never had been that observant about things that were just a little bit out of the ordinary.

Slowly, she walked towards the woman, who was sitting on her own a little distance away from all the other patients, looking at the floor and leaning her elbows on her knees. She was wearing a hospital gown, her dark brown hair falling around her shoulders. She didn't look up as Annie approached. She seemed lost in her own world.

"Hello," Annie said when she was right next to her.

The woman didn't look up, didn't react to her at all. Annie stood there, not quite sure what to do next, the woman's voice loud in her head, miserable and scared.

She sat down.

"Are you – okay?" Annie asked.

The woman turned finally, but in a daze, not really focusing on the question. She looked at Annie as though she weren't there.

"Hey," Annie said. "It's alright."

The woman's face wrinkled into a frown, and she focused on Annie more fully. "You – can see me?" she asked, sounding amazed.

Annie smiled at her words. "I can see you," she assured her.

The woman blinked, emotion creeping it's way across her face. "But how? No one else could."

"Are you… you do know you're dead, right?"

The woman looked away, back at the floor, nodding quickly, her eyes watering. "Breast cancer," she said. "I was doing okay. Last round of chemo. Something must have gone wrong, it does sometimes, blood clot possibly."

"I'm sorry," Annie said genuinely. "It's a big thing to happen."

"But," she looked back up at Annie, wiping tears off her cheeks. "Where am I? Why can't anyone see me except you?"

"I don't fully understand it myself," Annie said. "But I think what happens, after we die, is that some people don't move on, they don't – complete their journey as a friend of mine once called it. They linger in this world, but they're not fully here. They – become ghosts."

"Ghosts?" the woman was incredulous, and wiped another tear from her chin. "I've never heard anything so ridiculous. You've not been talking to my husband have you?"

Annie shrugged. "'Fraid not," she said. "It's - people who've got something still to do," she went on. "Something still to complete in their lives. Something important, or something unresolved."

The woman laughed through her tears, but it wasn't convincing. She sounded close to the edge. "So why can you see me, then?" she wondered. "Are you some sort of psychic like that TV programme. That woman who can see ghosts?"

"No I – I am a ghost," Annie explained. "I'm dead. I've been dead for – oh- 18 months or so."

The woman looked at her again. "You're dead?" she exclaimed.

"Yup," Annie said. "As a doornail, or doorknob, or whatever it is. Dodo possibly. Anyway I'm definitely dead."

"You're a ghost?"

She nodded. "That too. Dead and a ghost."

"But," the woman still wasn't convinced. "What do I do now? I can't talk to anyone, I can't talk to my husband. I tried but he just couldn't hear me. And he was crying and I – couldn't comfort him." Her tears were coming thick and fast now. She didn't try to stop them. " I couldn't even touch him. Why am I here if I can't even touch him? If I can't let him know it's okay. If I can't let him know that I love him!" And she broke down, Annie gathering her into her arms.

"Sh," she said, soothingly, rubbing her back as around them the A&E department got on with it's business of life and injury and death without a glance in their direction. "It's okay. It's all going to be okay."

***

Mitchell looked up from mopping the grimy hospital floor, acutely aware somehow that he was being watched. He didn't like that. Part of the purpose of doing such a shitty job was that people wouldn't look at him; they wouldn't notice him or think about him or ask questions about him. Jobs like his, and the people that did them, were invisible to a large proportion of society, and that was the way he liked it.

So he didn't like being watched.

The man whose eyes were on him was old in comparison to most of the mortals around him, around 60 or over probably, dressed well, balding, face lined with years of no-doubt eventful life.

Mitchell met his eyes, but didn't hold his gaze, not wanting to draw even more attention to himself. He went back to his mopping, hoping the man would move on, that his interest had been sparked by disapproval of his rings or his hair colour, or something else arbitrary that older people tended to find to dislike about the young – or in his case the perceived young.

But the man's gaze didn't leave Mitchell. Instead, he levered himself off the wall, carefully smoothing the coat that he was carrying neatly over one arm. Then he took a step closer.

"You know," he said in his well-rounded vowels. "There is no shame in being a cleaner, if those are the cards that life dealt you."

"Excuse me?" Mitchell said with incredulity, keeping a tight hold of his mop as he addressed the man.

"I was just commenting," the man went on. "That we all must play the roles that we were given, if they are the roles we were meant to play."

Something about him reminded Mitchell disconcertingly of Herrick, so much so that he was temporarily struck dumb and couldn't think what to say in response. But luckily, perhaps, the man showed little interest in continuing the conversation, and simply smiled in a vaguely patronizing manner, before walking sedately away.

Mitchell watched the departing man, amazed and confused, mouth hanging open in a way that would have prompted his long-dead mother to say to him "Are you trying to catch flies?" in her harsh brogue.

He opened his mouth wider to shout to him and call the man back.

"Mitchell!"

He never got the chance.

Turning his head he saw George making his way determinedly down the corridor towards him. But when he pivoted back to watch the man again, he'd disappeared.

"Mitchell," George came up beside him, slightly out of breath, pensive and obviously highly-strung about something – even more so than usual. He was in his scrubs, not long into his shift.

"I've just had a really weird experience," Mitchell put in before his werewolf friend had a chance to say a word.

"That's nice," George commented, then dropped his bombshell. "Tully's dead."

His statement was brutal, and Mitchell was momentarily stunned by the unexpected nature of it.

"What?"

"Nina told me. She recognized him when they brought him in."

"Jesus!" Mitchell put a hand to his head to tug at his hair. "What, he's here?" George nodded. "What happened? Did he kill himself or something?"

"Not unless he was extremely imaginative about it," George said. "He was shot in the back."

"Someone shot him!" Mitchell's voice went up a few decibels, bringing a few unwelcome glances from round about. "Where?"

"In the woods last night. That's what it looks like anyway."

"Jesus," Mitchell said again. "Oh look, man, I'm sorry I know the two of you were – well…"

"Yeah thanks," George threw that one off quickly. "Only, there's one small problem."

"What's that?"

"Well, I was in the woods with Tully last night."

"Right." Mitchell waited for George to continue – but in vain. He looked up to see why he'd stopped, but quickly figured out that it was because he'd made his point. "Oh," he said. "Oh I see. But you didn't…?"

"No of course not," George exclaimed.

"Well then, what are you worrying about?"

"Nina said she thought the police would want to speak to me – to all of us maybe – because we knew Tully and we saw him yesterday."

"Yes but, George there's no reason to get worried if you've got nothing to hide."

"We've always got something to hide, though," he hissed, coming closer. "Don't we, Mitchell?"

"Something to do with this, I meant," the vampire clarified. "Yes we saw him yesterday, but a man like Tully probably has dozens of enemies. You said he wasn't that careful about his transformations and who he attacked? Who's to say that it wasn't a relative of one of his victims? Or just someone he owed money to?" Or someone whose flat he'd stayed in until he'd driven the occupants round the bend, he added – but only in his own head.

George didn't look convinced, glancing down the corridor as if expecting the police to appear at any second and cart him away. He took his glasses off. "This is just what I needed right now," he griped.

"Why, what else is going on?" Mitchell wondered, confused.

"Oh just – " George stammered. "Stuff, y'know, the usual." Then he sighed. "Tully told me some – things," he said. "Last night when I went to see him. He said that this guy had come after him, some guy who's trying to find out about werewolves. Tully said that he'd heard about werewolves going missing all across the country."

"What did he mean by missing?"

"I don't know," George insisted. "He wasn't very clear about the whole thing. But he strongly implied that whatever the danger was, it might well come here next – and be a threat to me and Nina."

"Did you believe him?" Mitchell wondered.

"I didn't," George confessed. "I didn't even listen to him very hard to be honest. But now… Jesus, Mitchell. What if he was telling the truth? What if that's why he's lying dead in the morgue right now – and I wouldn't even listen to him."

"Hey," Mitchell came forward. "Don't beat yourself up about it. Tully was a real bastard, George, and I know real bastards, believe me. He wanted to cause nothing by trouble. Whatever he was talking about – it could be totally unrelated to all this."

"But what if it was true," George insisted. "What if we really are in some sort of danger? What if Nina's in some sort of danger, and now she's off on her own."

"She's gone then?"

"Yeah. She'll probably be on the train by now."

"George, she'll be fine. Nina's very capable of taking care of herself."

"So was Tully," George pointed out. "And he's lying on a slab right now with a two inch hole in his spine!"

"Okay," Mitchell held his hands up placatingly. "How about – I ask around. If something like this is going on, people are bound to be talking about it."

"It's not like it's going to make the 6 o clock news, Mitchell!"

"People like us will be talking about it," Mitchell clarified. "Vampires may not get on with werewolves at the best of times – or any time really – but if there's any sort of threat to supernatural beings, word of it usually gets around. It's happened before, people have come after us, but it's never come to anything."

"Why have they come after us?" George wanted to know.

"Why do you think?" Mitchell said. "We're killers. Sometimes people find out about us and generally they don't think we should be walking about attacking humankind so blatantly and carefree. Some people don't think we should be walking about at all."

"But – is that safe? Talking to the others? It's not like you get on with the other vampires anymore. I mean," he lowered his voice and glanced around again. "There hasn't been any reaction to me killing Herrick, but you can hardly be persona gratta right now. You hang out with two werewolves, you're off the blood, you don't kill. You're like a poster boy for vampires anonymous. You really expect them to pass on information to you?"

Mitchell shook his head a little. It was hard to explain. "Me and the other vampires, we may not be bestest buddies," he said. "But I've known some of these guys for half a century or more. We're like – we're like those two tramps in Waiting For Godot."

"Estragon and Vladamir?" George said (he had of course read it in the original French).

"Yeah them, like vamp tramps. We hate each other but we need each other," he said. "We've been around for so long - for too long for little things to get in the way, particularly when something important is at stake."

"Well, let's hope there are no stakes involved," George quipped. "I don't want to have another vampire near-death experience, thank you."

"Alright," Mitchell said with a smile. "I'm off in a bit. I'll go and meet up with a couple of my old friends then. There's this bar they like to hang out in, I'll try there rather than going to the funeral parlour. How about you, you on a late one?"

"I'm off at 10," George confirmed.

"Right. I'll catch you at home after and let you know what happened. In the meantime – don't worry. It's all going to work out George. You wait and see."


	5. Chapter 5

Her name, Annie eventually found out, was Alice, and she'd been in advertising, probably would still have been if it hadn't been for the whole death thing. She was married, no children, but they'd been trying for a few years now.

"IVF," she sniffed. "That might have been what brought on the breast cancer, but they'll never know for sure."

Annie listened as she talked about her life and her husband, Steve, who was a traffic cop, and their house, which it turned out wasn't a million miles from the little pink one she called home. They'd had two cats, and a rabbit, Sky TV and helpful parents. All in all, pretty perfect, again, apart from that pesky dying incident.

"So," Alice said eventually, when she'd recovered from her crying fit and spilled just about as much of her heart out to Annie as one person could probably bear in one sitting. "You think I've got something unresolved left to do in my life. And that I won't be able to move on until I've done it?"

"That seems to be the general rule," Annie confirmed. "Of course, I've never actually talked to the person who made the rules, and a lot of them, to be honest, are pretty mental. It's like, I live with this vampire, and he honestly can't go into someone's house unless they invite him in. How does that work? I mean how does that actually work? What is it like a psychological thing, or is an actual invisible barrier that just appears from out of nowhere and stops him going in?"

Alice was looking at her oddly again. "Did you just say that you lived with a vampire?" she inquired in a manner which carers usually used to ask crazy people why they kept shouting 'peppercorn' and dancing around with their underwear worn on their heads at a slightly jaunty angle.

"Ah – yeah, now, I should probably warn you about a few things," Annie started.

"A vampire?" Alice said again incredulously.

"Just as us ghosts are real, other elements of the supernatural are also somewhat real," Annie explained. "Vampires, there are many of, all over the place, but particularly in Bristol for some reason. Most of them are fairly unpleasant, but there are one or two, like my housemate, who are just lovely. But nasty or nice, they can't hurt you – well technically they can, but they're only likely to if you really do something to piss them off. Most of the time they'll just leave you alone. But they will be able to see you. So if you see someone looking at you oddly, that could be why."

"You're seriously telling me there are vampires?"

"Mm," Annie confirmed, nodding happily. "And werewolves. My other housemate is a werewolf."

Alice pulled a face at her, obviously not believing a word of it.

"Oh it's okay," Annie told her. "I didn't believe it all at first either. But you'll get used to the idea after a while. There are probably more things out there that I haven't run into yet, I mean who knows what's hiding out there in the woods: fairies, centaurs, probably even a unicorn or two if you look hard enough."

Alice was really laughing now, and her face came alight. She had a lovely laugh, bubbly and honest. Annie smiled to hear it. Alice might be dead, but there was still a little bit of joy left in her world for all that.

Eventually, Alice stopped laughing, and looked down into her lap, sighing. "Oh, Annie," she said. "It's been quite a day."

"You'll be okay, you know," Annie said. "I've been doing this for ages now, but I met a ghost not so long ago who'd been dead for 20 years, and loving it. He's passed on now, but he really gave me hope that it doesn't have to be all bad, being this way."

"Yeah, well, was he wearing a hospital gown?" Alice asked, gripping the material of her outfit in her fist and holding it up to demonstrate. "And no underwear?"

Annie suppressed a smile. "Sorry about that," she said. "I'm afraid you're pretty much stuck with it now."

"Oh great," Alice complained. "Ah well. Guess I just get on with things, find out what this big unresolved issue is." She smiled at Annie. "Thank you," she said genuinely.

"Hey, no worries. I'm just happy I could help. Right place at the right time." She got to her feet. "You may find it easier to stay around the hospital at first, and if you do, I'll come visit you," she said. "But I'd imagine that eventually you'll want to tag along with your husband, get something familiar back. But I hope we can still hook up. I live in Totterdown, big pink house on Windsor Terrace. You can't miss it. If you're in the area, come by and meet my friends."

"Thanks. Maybe I will."

"Okay. Well, bye then." And Annie left her with a wave, a smile on her face at the thought she'd been of some use, that she'd been able to pass on what she'd learnt in the past few months to someone else. That she wasn't just passive any more, sitting there watching as everyone else lived there lives and hers disappeared down the plug hole.

She marched through the A&E department, head held high, wondering if this was maybe what she was going to do now: help people like her to find their way. It maybe wasn't as noble or glamorous at all that stuff pop stars got up to, but it would do. It would give eternity a purpose, give her a mission, give her something else to do other than hanging around the house all day doing hoovering and reading every book over and over again.

Feeling elated, she barely noticed the man in front of her, certainly didn't pick up on the fact that he was another ghost – even though his clothes were out of place – until she was almost right on top of him. In fact, she would have walked right past him, had he not been standing deliberately in her way.

"Annie," he said, hands on hips. "Can we talk?"

***

"Hey hey!" Mitchell cried exuberantly. "Arlie, my man. How have you been!"

The man at the bar was blonde and wearing a white shirt, casually rolled up at the sleeves to reveal pale, but well-muscled forearms. He was drinking what looked like a gin and tonic, which he kept his hand on as he turned to see who had called his name. When he recognized Mitchell, he spun on his seat and got up.

"Hey, boyo," he announced, holding out a hand to be shaken. But then he pulled it away as Mitchell reached out to take it. "You, wanker." He finished, his face clouding, and he turned away, sitting back on his seat determinedly.

Mitchell sighed at the insult, feeling a surge of familiar anger rise inside him, but stuffing it down. He moved up to the bar and put his hands on its smooth, slightly sticky surface as the bar man came up to take his order.

"Stella, if you're got it," he said.

"Pint?"

"Please."

Then he stood next to Arlie, who'd gone back to his drink and was pointedly ignoring him.

"I done something to offend you?" Mitchell asked him quietly.

Arlie chortled out a little ironic laugh. "Oh Mitchell," he said. "You always were an insufferable cock." Somewhere behind his English accent was a little hint of an American one trying to escape – but only if you listened really hard.

"Cheers," Mitchell responded, gripping the bar top just a bit tighter.

Arlie glanced his way. "You honestly thought you could just waltz back in here as if nothing had happened?

"I don't remember doing anything to you," Mitchell pointed out.

"An injury to one, my friend, is an injury to all," Arlie took a drink. "Herrick had vision, he was going to take us somewhere, and you let your pet wolf rip him to pieces."

Mitchell glanced awkwardly at the bar man who'd chosen that moment to return with his beer. The guy looked between the two vampires, but made no comment, taking Mitchell's money and moving quickly away.

He took a sip of his beer, licking the foam from his upper lip. "George did what he did for my sake," he said quietly. "Herrick's dead because of me, not him."

Arlie laughed again. "Fucking werewolves," he said. "Honestly Mitchell, a werewolf. What's he like do sexual favours for you or something? You getting your freak on in a literal sense these days?"

"We're just friends," Mitchell said evenly. "He's a good bloke."

"Yeah, whatever," Arlie sighed. "You want to hang out with animals, it's your choice. Just don't expect me to understand."

At that Mitchell smiled. It was a concept he could get his head around. "I don't," he said. "I don't expect you to understand because you can't. You don't get it," he went on, turning to Arlie. "None of you do. There's more to life that just killing and dominating. George helped me to see that. He showed me how the monster inside doesn't have to rule you, how you don't need to kill just because it's easy and feels right. You do have choices. No matter what you are."

"Touching," Arlie said dryly.

Mitchell snorted, turning away. It was an argument he'd lost before he'd even come in the door. Vampires just didn't like werewolves, and another thing they didn't like was being told that they shouldn't kill. They were two subjects that should never be brought up, like politics and religion at dinner parties. Once you're on one side of the debate, no amount of persuasion is going to take you to the other side. You'd go to war first.

Mitchell conceded defeat and drank more of his beer.

"So you came here to lecture me on being nice to helpless animals?" Arlie asked, putting just a little bit too much emphasis onto the 'helpless' for Mitchell's liking.

"No," he said. "I came here to ask you for information."

Arlie laughed, really laughed at that. "Please!" he said. "Now you are joking."

Mitchell remained emotionless. "We've heard rumours…" he began.

"What, you and the lyco?"

"We've heard rumours," he said again. "Of someone causing trouble."

"What sort of someone?"

"A hunter, possibly," Mitchell clarified.

"Shit," Arlie said, amused, and took a swig of his own drink. "I thought we'd done with all that. What is it with these humans that they think they can wave a few crucifixes and pointy sticks around and suddenly they're Van Helsing."

"So you haven't heard anything?"

Arlie shook his head. "Nothing about a hunter. No one's gone missing or anything. Except Herrick of course," he dropped in.

Mitchell rolled his eyes.

"But I'll keep my ears open," he said. "Something like that is always cause for being cautious. If you like the quiet life."

"Thanks," Mitchell said, taking a final swig of his beer and putting the glass firmly back on the bar top, feeling the conversation come to a close.

He turned to go, but paused. " I am sorry," he said quietly. "About Herrick. I know you were close. But it had to be this way. It was him or me, and you know he would have killed me if he'd had the chance."

Arlie didn't look at him, didn't respond.

Mitchell started to walk away.

"Tell me something," Arlie suddenly said, arrestingly. "When that dog of yours…" he paused, and Mitchell turned back, waiting expectantly for the next words, which Arlie was obviously trying to pick carefully. He gave up and tried a new sentence. "When he's finally not with you any more," he said diplomatically. "Do you think you'll come back?"

Mitchell considered him. "To the fold you mean?"

"Yeah. I mean you're still a cock but, there are times it would be – alright to hang out."

Euphemism for 'I miss you' I suppose, Mitchell thought.

"I don't know," he said. "Possibly. I haven't thought that far ahead. But I'm not killing again. I've given that part of me up. Forever."

Arlie nodded, still not looking at him.

Mitchell looked at him sadly. Once he would have seen a man he respected and liked, a kindred spirit. A blood brother. Now he just saw a monster couched in the clothes of respectability, a murderer in civvies.

He turned once more and walked out of the bar, drawing a few glances from people he'd once known and lived beside, but no one else acknowledged him.

And behind him, Arlie sat at the bar and downed his drink, then turned and watched Mitchell's retreating form.

Another man joined him, a bald man wearing a suit, with a vicious, uncompromising face.

Arlie glanced at him. "Do you know what," he said softly. "I'm feeling like a bit of an outing."


	6. Chapter 6

Bemused and curious, Annie followed the man to a little side room, a private waiting room perhaps, with more plastic chairs, and a table with a box of tissues on it. Peeling posters on the walls advertised support numbers for bereavement charities, and one described the symptoms of ovarian cancer: 'Bloated? Feeling full? Tummy pain?'.

Annie raised her eyebrows at it, then concentrated on the ghost, who was pacing slowly up and down the far end of the room casting her occasional glances.

"What's this all about?" she asked eventually, feeling oddly nervous. But as soon as she realized that, she tried to shake the feeling off. She was dead, she reminded herself, what the hell else could anyone do to her?

The man, whose old tweed suit didn't quite fit over his large girth, stopped pacing and turned to her. He had copious amounts of dark brown hair that was ineffectually pasted to his round head with some sort of gel or wax or something, and he had a little pencil-thin moustache above his purple lips.

"So," he said, and the lips smiled. "Why did you think you could just come in here and talk to the new ghosts? Did someone appoint you as a meeter and greeter?"

"Uh…" Annie managed.

"No, they didn't," he went on, answering his own question. "You just presumed, somehow that you had the right. Well you don't."

Annie's face was now screwed up in confusion. "I'm sorry," she apologized in a tone that made it sound like a question. "I didn't really realize there were rules to this. I just saw that woman looking upset and – "

"And you thought you'd stick your nose in," he finished. "Well, don't, sweetheart. The hospital is my patch and I meet the new ghosts, I tell them what the rules are."

She was even more confused now. "You mean there really are rules?" she asked. "I wasn't being serious."

"Oh, making a joke of it are we? Do you think it's funny being dead?"

"Well," she hedged. "It is quite funny – when you think about it."

"Funny!" he exclaimed, making her jump slightly. "You think being crushed by a tram is funny!"

"She," Annie glanced back in the direction of the waiting room. "Died of breast cancer."

"_I_ was crushed by a tram!" he yelled angrily.

"Oh," Annie said, finding the situation more amusing than threatening. The man just couldn't do intimidation. He was too self-important.

"Nineteen hundred and thirty six," he elaborated.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's when I was crushed," he said.

"Gosh – you've been here for…" she tried to do quick arithmetic in her head.

"83 years," he filled in, obviously tired of waiting for her to add. "So I think I know a little bit more about being dead than you do!"

"But why haven't you completed your journey?" Annie asked. "You'll be here for a reason, and you must have been here long enough to find out what that is. There should have been a portal and…"

"Yes, yes, yes, I know about all that," he snapped, waving his hand dismissively. "Portals and all that rubbish. This is my purpose here, making dead people feel better."

She raised her eyebrows, doubting that this could possibly ever be the case. "You make dead people feel better?"

He nodded briskly. "Yes, by telling them how to behave now that they're ghosts. By showing them what they can do. Not by confusing them and telling them about vampires and unicorns!

"That was just a…"

"So if you don't mind, I'll ask you to leave the hospital and stop confusing people."

"You can't tell me what to do," she pointed out incredulously. "Just because you've been dead longer than me, it doesn't make you like, the king of the dead people. It doesn't give you the right to boss me around."

"Oh, doesn't it," he said, and nodded in her direction, sending her stumbling backwards as if he'd physically shoved her.

She recovered, startled, flashing back in her head to a time when Owen had shoved her, sobbing, against a wall and watched her slide to the ground in terror.

"_Don't you ever speak to me like that, d'you hear! Don't you ever! Don't you dare!" _

"It would be unwise to cross me," the man was saying, as she snapped back to reality.

Annie felt a fury rising in her, directed at the dark memory, but focused now on this pompous little man who might, had he approached her differently, have won her respect for his experience and his longevity, but now had stoked the fire of her anger.

She raised her chin, and a sudden wind blew from behind her, knocking the man backwards with far more violence than he had used on her. He fell against a row of chairs, throwing up an arm protectively across his face.

Then the wind dropped as quickly as it had started, and Annie took a determined step towards him.

"Don't try to control me," she said. "You may have been here longer, seen more things, but I turned down death itself to be here. And if I want to talk to someone who's in pain and needs my help, then I'll tell you now that I'm going to do it. And you're not going to stop me. Not you, not anyone."

She turned on her heel and left, quickly, blowing the door open without touching it. And leaving the man behind her, shocked, speechless, and trying to recover what was left of his ghostly dignity.

***

She had gone for a long walk afterwards, feeling suddenly an indefinable urge to rediscover the city that had been her home before her death. She hadn't been out in it for so long, except to go to fixed points where she was needed, like the hospital, or where she had been asked to go, like to the cemetery with Gilbert. Suddenly she felt the need to let herself go where she wanted to go, to just wander and see things and people and places and get a little bit of that sense of independence back. It was hardly a grand, world tour, but she found herself smiling as she explored streets of red brick houses, and watched people going about their everyday lives, happy and secure that the world about them was turning the way they expected, and that the girl they saw walking past in grey and white was just a normal person rather than a non-corporeal manifestation of a person that had once been alive, but had long since been coffined and buried beneath the cold earth of the city.

Quickly, all anger at the man in the waiting room faded, and she found herself almost laughing at the ridiculousness of it. How dare he! Where did he get the right?

She shook her head. No one could tell her what to do now. No one could seek to control her life like that. She could do anything, and no one could harm her.

Eventually she tired of walking, and a glance at a digital clock hanging outside a shop told her that it was after 8 and that Mitchell would now be back at home. She got herself back through her ghostly means, and found the vampire eating a sandwich in their cozy kitchen at home.

"Hiya," she said cheerfully, walking in.

"Where have you been?" he wondered, chewing noisily.

"Oh, just out wandering," she said.

"Really? Wandering?"

"I just had a weird experience at the hospital today and it put me in the mood to wander – so I wandered," she explained, gripping the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

"What kind of weird experience?"

"Well, I met this man…" she started.

"Balding bloke, wearing a suit?" Mitchell asked quickly.

Annie looked confused. "He was wearing a suit, a fairly hideous one, but he wasn't balding," she clarified. "He was quite a big guy, a ghost."

"Oh well then," he said, putting down his sandwich. "Not the same guy."

"What guy did you meet?"

"I'll tell you later," he said. "So you met another ghost?"

"Yeah, actually I met two. There was this woman in the waiting room who'd died that morning and I was just talking to her and telling her a little bit about what it was like to be a ghost, and when I left, this guy came out of nowhere and started giving me a hard time about it. It was really odd, actually. It was like he felt the hospital was his 'patch' or something, and everything ghostly that went on there had to be run past him."

Mitchell's eyes narrowed. "Little pencil moustache? Died in the 1930s?"

"Yeah, he said he'd died in 1936. Hang on. Do you know him, then?"

Mitchell rolled his eyes and slumped back in his seat. "That's Geoffrey," he stated. "That guy is such a pain."

"You've met him before?"

" A couple of times," Mitchell confirmed. "He likes to hang around the hospital and boss people about, but of course only the dead people can see him, and although there's a lot of them at the hospital, as you might expect, most of them pass over or leave before he has a chance to get to them, so he just gets really frustrated. I accidentally let on one day that I was aware of his existence, and he gave me a tough time for a couple of weeks, before I warned him off."

"How did you warn him off?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Classic vampire intimidation."

"Ah."

"Yeah. What did he say to you?"

"Just that it was his hospital, that I shouldn't be talking to other ghosts there. He was really rude and gave me this sort of psychic shove."

"What did you do?"

"I shoved him back! Harder! No one's pushing me around anymore. Not after Owen. No one's ever pushing me around again!"

Mitchell smiled at her, loving seeing her like this, so confident. "Well, you put him in his place then."

"Damn straight," she said, smiling back. "So what about your balding guy then?"

Mitchell leant forward again. "I dunno," he said, picking up his sandwich. "It's just been an odd day. Did you know that Tully died?"

"No!" Her eyes widened, and she let go of the chair and came round to sit in it. "How come?"

"George told me. Nina was there when they brought him in and recognized him. He'd been shot in the back."

"No!"

"George called a little while ago to say that he'd been questioned by the police about it all, just an informal interview at the hospital, but he'd told them that he knew him and that he'd seen him yesterday, but that he didn't know anything else about him. He's been really anxious about it all for obvious reasons. He's worried they're going to start poking around and find out some rather – inconvenient facts."

"Do you think they will?"

"I dunno," he said, taking another bite of his sandwich. "I don't think so, but I've always found it hard to predict how the police will react to the slightly more unusual aspects of the world. But the advantage for George and Tully is that they appear so perfectly – well normal's not quite the right word for George – but normal at every time of the month except that one night. The police are going to be looking at this from a simple human murder point of view. They've no reason to suspect George, other than the fact that he knew Tully and had seen him yesterday, but that's it. There shouldn't be any evidence to connect the two, so he shouldn't have anything to worry about. Probably."

"When's George coming home?"

"His shift finishes at 10," Mitchell said, glancing at the clock, it was half eight. "So I'll talk to him some more then. But there's this other thing going on as well."

"What's that?" Annie wondered.

"It's this – thing," Mitchell tried to explain, feeling tired suddenly. "Something that Tully said to George. Something that could be a threat – possibly for all of us."


	7. Chapter 7

When half ten came and George didn't come home as expected, his housemates barely noticed. They'd settled down to watch TV after Mitchell had finished his dinner and they'd chatted more. It wasn't until the 11 o clock news bulletin came on that Mitchell looked at his watch and found it curious that the werewolf hadn't appeared. When half 11 came, Mitchell phoned his mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. He rang it again 15 minutes later with the same result. At midnight he rang the hospital, with Annie standing beside him, tugging strands of her hair, and spoke to one of the other cleaners, who confirmed that he'd seen George leave at about quarter past 10, nothing unusual. Maybe he was cheating on Nina, the guy had suggested with a harsh laugh. Though it would be a brave man that did that, he'd added more soberly.

Mitchell hung up the phone.

"Yeah, he left on time," he said, then reached for his coat and his keys. "I'm going looking for him."

"I'll come too," Annie stated.

"No you stay here," Mitchell said. "In case he comes back. I'll keep my phone on, so let me know if he gets in touch."

After making it back to the hospital, Mitchell stumbled along the dark street glancing about him. He felt almost feral, like an animal hunting. It wasn't a bad feeling, truth be told it felt natural. But that made even more uncomfortable. It was like nature reminding him of what he really was, whatever his pretensions to be human, he was still a hunter looking for prey. Nothing would change that.

Finding the prey, that was the problem.

When he'd first met George, his werewolf friend had been extremely secretive about every aspect of his life. He'd allowed Mitchell to help him that first night they'd met: take him to A&E, help him pack the small amount of stuff he had stored in the dingy room above the cafe. He'd even deigned to sleep on Mitchell's couch for one night, hiding from the vampires in plain view so to speak, and probably just too sore and scared to think up an alternative. But in the morning, bandaged and bruised after Seth's casual beating, George had moved on, expressing thanks, but clearly having no interest in taking the relationship any further.

It was Mitchell who'd tracked him down again a couple of weeks later, somehow drawn to this other lonely supernatural being for reasons he couldn't quite put his finger on. He'd been trying for years now to get away from the vampire world, to stop killing, and feeding as if it were normal and okay and somehow acceptable. He'd grown to loathe it, and the others, but couldn't summon the strength to just make a break for it and leave, go somewhere where their influence would no longer trouble him.

Maybe that's why he'd gone looking for George. By associating himself with something so hated in the vampire world, so reviled in every possible way, it was his way of sticking two fingers up to it, of rejecting what he was; his way of not-so-subtly telling them that he'd rather hang out with a werewolf than with his own kind.

He'd found George eventually staying in a hostel, still in Bristol, now out of work, and with his face not yet quite free of the evidence of his vampiric encounter. He'd been stand-offish, not terribly willing to talk, suspicious of Mitchell's motives, and generally pretty rude. But that was okay, it was to be expected really, particularly when you took into consideration the proximity to the full moon. He'd heard that werewolves were pretty grumpy bastards to be around close to their change.

But he'd kept at it; he had all the time in the world after all. Every mortal relationship was transient to a vampire, and it wasn't like George had much else to do with himself than allow this strange, dark-haired man to become a bigger part of his life. At least he didn't have to hide what he was from him, he didn't have to pretend. And somehow, as their meetings became more regular, that was all he needed, that and a reassurance that Mitchell wasn't going to get tired of him at some point and have a quick chew on his vascular system to relieve the boredom.

"Believe me," Mitchell said. "Vampires may hate you for what you are, may even try to beat you to death from time to time, but they will never try to feed from you."

"Why not?" George had wondered, always curious about the vampire world, but shy to ask unless it actually came up in conversation.

"Your blood would be – wrong," Mitchell tried to explain. "It just – we prefer humans."

"I'm quite human, thank you," George had said, insulted.

Mitchell smiled. "Yeah, right."

But in all the time he'd known George, he'd never just disappeared before.

Except once.

George's biggest reluctance had always been in allowing Mitchell access to his double life. He'd been incredibly independent about it all, particularly for someone who had absolutely nothing to be independent about. But maybe those are the sorts of people who have the most need for independence. Being a werewolf was a sort of extreme form of not having control for a certain period of time, but somehow George had seemed to find comfort in finding a way to control that non-controllable part of himself, in keeping it private, and keeping it away from every other aspect of what he was.

But then one day following a full moon, maybe 6 months after they'd met, Mitchell had shown up at the shop George had been working in, thinking he'd take his friend out to lunch, only to be told he hadn't come in. The manager shrugged and said they'd had no phone call, nothing at all to let them know where he was.

Mitchell felt an instant twist of concern in his gut, surprising himself, as he hadn't realized just how fond of George he'd become. It seemed to him pretty certain that something must have happened during or perhaps after George's transformation, but he didn't even know where the werewolf went to do his thing every month, let alone how he coped with the aftermath.

Mitchell left the shop quickly, and, for lack of a better option, had headed for George's hostel to see if he was there. But he'd just reached the main door, and was stubbing out his cigarette to go in, when a taxi pulled up a little way down the street and George got out. Every inch of his visible skin was filthy. His hair was ruffled and he was wearing the oddest mix of clothes Mitchell had ever seen, with a highly embarrassed expression to finish it all off.

He looked over suddenly in Mitchell's direction, and the vampire could see him shut his eyes, as if his day had gone from extremely awful to downright disastrous in just a few seconds. But then he raised his voice and called to him.

"Do you have any money on you?"

"What?"

Mitchell had been so surprised at the sight of him, that he didn't even hear what he was asking.

"Money, for the cab," George explained. "My cash is upstairs."

"Oh, right," Mitchell put his hand in his pocket and came up with a crumpled £10 note. He hurried over and paid George's fair, taking the change that was offered, and looking his friend up and down as the taxi pulled away into the lunchtime traffic. "What the hell happened to you?"

"What do you think?" George said huffily, making for the door, and clearly eager to get off the street.

Mitchell followed him. "I dunno. Fancy dress party?"

George gave him a withering look as they headed through the door. "I couldn't find my clothes this morning," he said.

"Does that often happen?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I'm curious. And maybe I can help."

George thumped through doors on the way to his tiny and impossibly neat room, his little bit of privacy in a mad world. "I don't want anyone's help. I can manage on my own."

"Sure looks like it," Mitchell commented.

They arrived at the room, and George pushed the door open. "Look," he said. "I don't like to talk about it, okay? I don't like to think about it, and I certainly don't like to plan for it. It just happens, and then it's gone for another month."

Mitchell followed him in. "Does it normally take you this long to get home?" he said.

George was going through a bag looking for his wallet, and ignored the question.

Mitchell looked at his watch. "It's nearly 1 in the afternoon, George. Have you seriously been out wherever you do your thing without clothes and looking like this since last night?"

George looked uncomfortable and continued fumbling for his wallet. "I was at the hospital," he muttered.

"What was that?"

"I was at the hospital," he said louder, finding his wallet and pulling out £10, which he offered to Mitchell. He waved his hand, not wanting or needing the money.

"Why were you at the hospital?"

George gave a little shrug, still holding out the money. "Because it hurt itself last night," he said.

"It?"

"The – you know, the – thing."

"Werewolf, George. Jesus, you can't even say it!"

He got angry. "Take the money," he said.

Mitchell folded his arms defiantly. "How did _you_ get hurt?"

George sighed, defeated, and put the money back in his bag. Then he rather reluctantly pulled off the tatty blue sweater he was wearing, which he'd gotten from god knows where, and which smelt of dirt and neglect. Underneath, George's skin was just as dirty as that on his face and hands, but Mitchell could also see there was a bandage on his left upper arm, and a few red scratch marks visible on his chest and up onto his shoulder.

"A squirrel fight back?" he asked glibly.

"I don't know, do I!" George shot back. "I had to get 7 stitches in that." He threw the jumper on his bed and reached for his dull grey dressing gown. "And a Tetanus jab."

"How did you explain it at the hospital?"

"I said I was drunk and didn't remember," he said, picking up his Star of David from the bedside cabinet and slipping it on. "They think I did it on a barbed wire fence or something, had a laugh at my expense."

"Ouch," Mitchell sounded genuinely sympathetic. "Honestly, I could help with this."

"No – Mitchell…"

"Hear me out," he said. "You've helped me, okay. You really have, and I just want to repay that favour."

"I don't want your help," George insisted again. "And you don't owe me anything."

"I'm not saying every month, George. I'm not saying I become part of - whatever it is you do out there, when you're losing your clothes and running into fences. I'm saying that when you lose your clothes and run into a fence, you call me and I take you to the hospital. Or at the very least come and pick you up afterwards and save you a cab fair."

George toyed with the end of his dressing gown cord. "I don't know," he said.

"Jesus, it's got to be a better option than this!" Mitchell insisted, picking up the jumper and giving it a disdainful sniff. "What have you got to lose?"

That had been a year ago, more probably now. Time never had that same drag effect, the same quantifying of periods for vampires as it did for everyone else. It was a year ago, 18 months ago maybe. That was nothing to Mitchell in his endless existence. It was just time.

But he remembered how it wasn't long after that that they'd started working at the hospital together. George had lost his job at the shop, not because he had a habit of showing up late once a month, but because one of the assistant managers had decided to get on his nerves in the raw run up to his time of the month. The guy had ended up losing a tooth over the affair, and George had been lucky to get away from it with just the loss of his job, rather than an assault charge. But it was all the opportunity Mitchell needed to cement their relationship, and he'd brought up the idea of them working together when the two jobs came up at Bristol Royal Infirmary right around the time George hit rock bottom.

He wasn't sure, truth be told, why he'd done it, why he'd wanted them both to work together, why he wanted to spend even more time with the werewolf. After all, they had so little in common, practically nothing except their supernatural tendencies in fact. But they were both now outsiders in the dark world that they discovered themselves in. They were together, and now they had found Annie, they had created their own little unit of support. They needed each other, they respected each other, they were there for each other, in a way that most married couples never even were. So now that one of them was missing, they were incomplete, and nothing felt right.

Distracted from his memories, Mitchell suddenly stopped. And sniffed.

He was maybe half a mile from the main hospital building, and while a small, pleasant looking park trundled off to his right, to his left was a row of tatty shops, all of them closed at this time of night, their windows dark.

He sniffed again and took a few steps forward.

Down the side of the shops, between them and a couple of even tattier-looking garages, ran a dark alleyway that was lit by a single street light and overwhelmed by one or two giant wheelie bins. He smelt the clear, cloying smell of blood so definitely, that his eyes scorched black before he could help himself. It was instinct after all. Blood was what he craved. Awake or asleep, the need for it scratched at the insides of his brain, and whispered sweet nothings of longing in his ear with more potency than any lover he had ever known.

He shook his head slightly to clear it, and with more human eyes, glanced cautiously around himself, before taking a few steps into the alley.

He knew the blood wasn't human instantly. It just smelt wrong. It was like – corked wine – not quite right, though probably still drinkable at a pinch. And there was plenty of the blood to sniff at, patterning the floor, splattered on the brick wall, pools of it glinting darkly in the light from the street lamp. Mitchell's heart began to flutter in his chest at the sight of it. Had this been a human who had deposited so much of their blood in the alleyway, they would surely not have left it alive. But this was not human blood, definitely not.

He crouched down beside it and gently placed a finger into a congealing pool, lifting it up, dripping, closer to his face in an attempt to analyze it.

Vampire?

His brain was fairly sure, but the logical part of him, and the part that was searching for George and had been dreading finding evidence of his injury in a dark alleyway such as this, wasn't ready to accept that.

He brought his finger even closer to his face, and tasted the blood with his tongue lightly, spitting it out almost instantly. Definitely vampire.

He glanced around. But was it was it all vampire.

He could definitely smell werewolf, he was sure of it. It was hardly something he wasn't used to now after months living in close proximity to George – okay not a bleeding George normally, but the scent was unmistakable. Werewolves smelt of werewolf. They couldn't help it. And in that alleyway, mixed somewhere with the gory splatter of vampire blood, was werewolf blood.

His face screwed up in confusion. But why? This was the route George would probably have been walking home. But how had this happened? Okay, vampires attacked werewolves with impunity, and remembering his earlier conversation with Arlie, he was pretty much sure (and kicking himself over it) that he knew exactly who had been doing the attacking and why. But it was still a day away from a full moon, and even with the extra strength that George's body would be gifted with right now, there's no way he could have fought off a whole troop of determined vampires, and left that much of their blood on an alleyway floor.

And even if he had, even if by some unlikely miracle, he'd kicked vampire ass, he would still have come home afterwards.

No, something about this really, definitely wasn't right. And Mitchell was fairly certain that there was only one place he was going to get any answers.

Determinedly, he got to his feet, and headed out into the street looking for a taxi.


	8. Chapter 8

**Bit of an extra warning here, the first part of this chapter is a bit bloody and contains strong, adult language**

***

He was cautious at first going into the funeral parlour for the first time in several months, but there was no resistance. No one was at the front desk; the door into the back wasn't locked. His nerves jangling with anticipation, a part of him wondered if they'd abandoned the place, given up and gone somewhere else, or maybe had a fight amongst themselves.

He made his way along the corridor, slightly bolder now after having met no one and seen nothing, and then a sound drew his attention. It was the sound of someone moving around roughly, carelessly. He found the door from which the noise emanated, and before he could think things through, he allowed his anger to fuel him, and wrenched the door open. Inside, the room seemed to be some sort of storage area, though there were a few chairs in there as well, a table, and a stash of what looked at a glance to be questionable magazines, implying that someone was using it for something other than storage.

Arlie was sitting on the table, bottle of whisky half way down from his lips in shock at Mitchell's sudden appearance. Mitchell stood in shock at Arlie's appearance. The vampire was covered in blood, bathed in it almost. His clothes were stained; his fair hair was clogged with it. A sloppy bandage had been wrapped loosely round his head and over one eye, but apart from that, he had no other visible injuries. Mitchell glanced down and saw two bodies curled haphazardly on the floor. Vampire first aid. He looked back up at his friend.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Arlie demanded.

"Where's George?" Mitchell countered angrily, strutting closer to him determinedly.

"What?" Arlie exclaimed incredulously.

"George. The werewolf, what did you do to him?"

"Oh fuck you, man. Fuck your werewolf! Can't you see I'm having a shitty night here?"

"What did you do to him!" Mitchell yelled, causing Arlie to start.

"Alright, alright," he held up his hands, one still holding the whisky bottle. "We had a little fun is all. Just got a bit out of hand."

"What are you talking about?"

Arlie took another swig of whisky and considered Mitchell carefully. "We just wanted to give him a scare," he explained. "We weren't really going to hurt him – not much. I just wanted him to see what the consequences are when a werewolf kills a vampire."

Mitchell gave an incredulous snort. "You wanted to get rid of him so that I'd come back to you. All that stuff about 'if you didn't have your dog anymore'. Like I'd really come back if you'd killed my best friend. What kind of idiot are you?"

Arlie sniffed. "Well," he said. "It's a moot point, isn't it. We'd barely got started – and he put up a bit of a fight which was nice, you know – he was just bleeding a bit, and I'd got hold of him and the others were taking turns, when suddenly Sorrenson, who's standing right in front of me about to take a hit, just crumples, just right there, he goes down. And there was a gunshot."

"A gunshot?" Mitchell broke in.

"Yeah, someone had shot him. And he went down."

"Who shot him?"

Arlie took another drink of whisky and shook his head. "I dunno," he said. "Some guy. I saw him, I saw him standing there with the gun. There was about five of them. And they just took us out, one after another, until I'm standing there holding the werewolf and no one else is left on their feet. They shot them all, all of them, right in front of me and they're down on the ground screaming and crying like little pansy-ass girls. And then this one guy, this one guy comes closer, and he points his gun at me, and he shoots me, right in the eye." At this, Arlie reached up and peeled back his bandage to give Mitchell a full view.

Mitchell winced at the sight, swallowing uncomfortably. "What did they do to George?" he demanded.

"Oh yeah, 'cause my priority was to worry about the lyco as I was _bleeding from my fucking eye_!" Arlie exclaimed loudly.

Mitchell wasn't deterred, rushing at him and grabbing hold of the front of his clothes. "You'll be bleeding from more than just your eye if you don't start being a little more helpful," he warned.

Arlie was rattled, but tried almost successfully to hide it. He swallowed. "I think they took him away," he said, wrestling loose from Mitchell's hold. "Put him in a car," he said flatly.

"You tink!" Mitchell's accent got stronger when he was wound up and he seemed to lose all ability to pronounce his 'th's'. Annie teased him about it from time to time, but she'd also confessed to finding it sexy.

"Did I not mention the losing-an-eye thing?" Arlie countered.

"And did I not mention the pain that would be coming your way if you didn't help me!"

Arlie just looked grumpy. "Honestly, Mitchell. I don't know what happened to him. One minute he was there, the next – they just took him. He was gone. And rather him than me. Those guys that took us out, they were bloody pros."

"Hardly," Mitchell had turned away from him, thinking.

"What do you mean?"

He glanced back, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Well, you're not exactly a big pile of dust, are you."

"True," Arlie agreed. "But they did what they meant to do. And I don't think they were there for us, Mitchell, they weren't there to take us out. They were there for him. Have no doubt – they got what they came for."

***

"Well?" Annie shot off the couch as soon as the door opened, but Mitchell saw her face fall a little when she realized he was alone.

He took off his hat and threw it and his keys onto the table, shutting the door behind him.

He shook his head. "I didn't find him."

"Nothing?" the ghost asked, desperately. "Nothing at all?"

Mitchell made a face.

"What?"

Mitchell sighed. "Well I know where he was."

"Where?"

"He was attacked."

Annie's hand flew to her mouth.

"By vampires."

"Vampires? What, people you know?"

"Yeah. People I know very well. I went to see them at the funeral parlour, and this guy I know from ages back – he'd, well they'd gone after George and…" his face screwed up. This story was getting way too complicated. "It wasn't them though. They had him, and then someone else has taken him. Someone attacked them whilst they were attacking him. And these other people have got George."

"Okay, Mitchell, just so that you know, words are coming out of your mouth, but they're not actually making sense."

He made a disgruntled sound and headed for the kitchen. The ghost followed him. "What do you mean someone else has got him?" she insisted. "Do you know how mental that sounds?"

Mitchell made a b-line for the bread tin, intent on toast to carb him up for the next stage of whatever the hell this night was going to throw at him.

"Someone else has him, Annie. That's what I'm saying, and I don't know who those people are or what they want." Though odds even it's not going to be good, he told himself silently. "But someone else has him. And they took out a load of vampires when they got him, so they're violent whoever they are. There's a bunch of vamps sitting over at the funeral parlour bleeding and cursing, but too scared to go after them."

"So what do we do?"

Mitchell slid the bread into the toaster and pushed the handle down. "I dunno," he said, leaning on the counter top and putting his head down. "I need to think."

Annie was silent for a few seconds, looking around in confusion. "Well, should we call Nina?" she wondered.

Mitchell looked over at her. "Do you have her number?"

She shook her head.

His face said that he'd expected as much. "Anyway, she'll be at her mum's party tonight. No point in worrying her until we have to. Is she coming home tomorrow?"

"I don't think so," Annie said. "It's a full moon tomorrow night. She said she had this lunch thing, and then she was going to stay an extra night after that rather than try and come back – ride it out at home rather than risk getting stuck on a train somewhere in middle England and - eating all the passengers or something."

"Good decision," Mitchell said, turning and putting his back to the counter top. "That's probably the only thing that could make British trains worse – having a werewolf on board."

Annie tilted her head to the side. "Like the Irish trains are so much better."

"They are," he insisted. "At least you always get a nun on board."

Annie opened her mouth, but couldn't think of a suitable response to that, so she shut it quickly.

Mitchell expelled a noise of frustration suddenly, one that he'd been holding onto since he'd left he funeral parlour. "I just can't believe it," he said. "I was so close to finding him. And now he's gone, and I don't know where he is. I don't know where he is, Annie!"

"But," Annie was still confused. "I don't understand, Mitchell, who could have taken him?"

He rubbed his face, and then turned quickly as his toast popped up. "I don't know," he said it again. "But – Tully – this thing Tully said to George." He fished the toast out gingerly, burning his fingertips. "This thing about werewolves disappearing, about some guy doing stuff to them. It has to be connected: Tully turning up dead, and now this? It has to be." Messily, he scraped butter across his toast. "I just wish George had told me more about what Tully had said to him. We were going to talk about it tonight. Guess we should have done it sooner."

"So you've no leads at all?"

"None," Mitchell stuck half a slice of toast in his mouth and chewed it with all the grace of a 4-year-old child. "But there's no point in going out again tonight. We'll just have to wait and see what the morning brings."


	9. Chapter 9

The morning brought nothing but rain and a knock on the door, which Mitchell answered eagerly enough, and then regretted it at the sight of who was on the other side.

"Mr Mitchell?" one of the policemen said.

Shit.

"Yes?"

"I'm Constable Barrows this is Constable Yeats. Can we come in?"

Mitchell stepped back from the door, opening it slightly to allow the two large men in. Annie had disappeared upstairs, still not an 'official' member of the household (death tended to do that to a person) she didn't want to risk being seen.

"We've just got a couple of questions," the first officer said, coming in and looking around.

"What's this about?" Mitchell wondered, praying they weren't there to give him bad news about George.

"It's about Mr Tullgren," he said.

"Who?" Mitchell's mind blanked.

"You might have known him as Tully? That's how most of his friends seemed to know him."

"Oh, right, yes," Mitchell had been so tied up in his thoughts about George, that he'd almost forgotten about Tully's murder. "But I wouldn't exactly call us friends."

"How would you classify your relationship with the deceased, Mr Mitchell?" Yeats said, taking out his notebook pointedly.

"Oh, he was just someone who stayed here for a bit. I didn't know him that well."

"When did he stay here??

"Back last year, about 6 months ago now I think, maybe a bit more. 8 months ago?"

"How long did he stay?"

"About four weeks maybe. He left pretty suddenly and I hadn't seen him again before he showed up the day before yesterday."

"And did you ever notice anything about Mr Tullgren?"

"Like what?"

"Well, anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary?"

"Um," Mitchell paused, his mouth open, and tried to think how to respond to that. "Um, no not really."

"What did he say when he was here two days ago?"

Mitchell shook his head a bit. "Just that he wanted to talk to George. He was acting quite threateningly."

"In what way?"

"Just aggressive. Generally. He was acting quite threateningly towards Nina."

"That's Mr Sand's girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"So you threw him out?"

"Well, not physically. I told him to get out and he did."

"And he didn't come back?"

"No."

"Mr Sands told us that later that evening he went to see Mr Tullgren. Can you tell me what mood he was in when he set off?"

"What mood he was in? I dunno, a bit upset maybe."

"A bit upset?" Barrows looked incredulous. "If someone had come to my house and threatened my girlfriend I would have been more than a bit upset."

Mitchell had played this game with the authorities many times over the years, and he knew where they were trying to get him to go. But he wasn't playing today. "He was upset," he repeated. "George isn't an aggressive man. He just wanted Tully gone. We all did."

"So he went to see him."

"Yes."

"Did you see him take a weapon of any sort?"

"A weapon? Don't be absurd. He went just as he was, and came back the same way."

"You saw him when he came in? How would you describe his mood then?"

"I dunno, a bit – distracted maybe. Thoughtful?"

"Not agitated?"

"No. Just like Tully had said some things to him that he had to think about."

"Did he discuss what they'd talked about?"

Mitchell shook his head. "No. He went to bed straight after he got in."

"Okay," Yeats closed his notebook. "You aren't planning any trips are you Mr Mitchell?"

"Not in the foreseeable future."

"Good, because we may have some more questions for you and your housemate relating to this matter. We wouldn't like to see either of you disappearing over the next few days."

"Neither would I," Mitchell assured them, holding the door for them on their way out.

As soon as they were gone, Annie re-appeared downstairs. Mitchell glanced at her purposefully, and went for his coat.

"Where are you going?" the ghost asked him, anxious at his mood.

"Back to the hospital," Mitchell said, grabbing his hat and ramming it on his head.

"But what for?" she insisted. "Why would he be there?"

"Oh look, Annie, I don't know!" he exclaimed. "But he has to be to be somewhere, okay. If Arlie and the other vamps hurt him last night, then maybe whoever has him now took him to the hospital for some treatment. Or maybe I can find someone who was nearby when the attack happened. I don't know, but I can't just sit here waiting. I have to do something."

Annie was silent, hurt by his tone, and every bit as anxious as Mitchell. The vampire looked at her, softening as he saw her face.

"Oh, look," he said. "I just want to keep looking for him." He went closer to Annie, taking her cold hands in his. "I need to find him. And this thing with Tully and the police is just making it all much more complicated."

She nodded, her eyes watering.

"I promise," he went on, locking eyes with her. "The moment I hear or find anything, I'll let you know, okay? Stay here, talk to Nina if she calls."

"What should I say?"

Mitchell shrugged. "Make something up," he said, and headed for the door. "I'll call you later."

Annie looked around after he was gone, hugging her arms across her chest, tears falling freely from her colourless cheeks.

***

Mitchell's mind wandered again as he walked determinedly back to the hospital. He pictured Arlie sitting in the blood-splattered room, the bodies of his latest victims cast carelessly on the floor; Tully leaning over Nina, her face up-turned towards his; the bald man in the hospital, watching him so carefully as he mopped the floor. How did they all fit together? What did it all mean, or was his brain just trying to find patterns where there were none?

His face tightened in frustration. He could never have been a detective, he just didn't have the right sort of mind. Figuring out puzzles like this, he'd always left that to other people. He was an action man, a decision maker. He liked being decisive. Subtlety was George's style, careful planning. Annie followed, George planned, Mitchell led. That's just how it was, and being thrown out of those roles was disconcerting. But George needed him to think now, he needed him to figure this puzzle out or God knows what was going to happen.

It was the car that first drew his attention. It was big, oversized really, and parked on double yellow lines right outside the hospital gates. The first thing his brain picked up on was that security shouldn't have allowed it to stay where it was.

The second thing his brain picked up on was that the man he'd seen watching him mopping, the one he'd been thinking about just moments before, was sitting calmly on a bit a wall right beside the car, his coat folded beside him.

Mitchell stopped, hands in his pockets, looking around nervously. The man didn't look at him. He crossed the road, nerves and senses alert to danger, but nothing manifested itself. He walked right up to the man, who very definitely kept his eyes on the pavement. Looking around one last time, Mitchell sat on the wall, about a metre away from him, tense and ready to bolt at any minute.

Then finally the man turned and looked at him, and Mitchell felt a chill strike him to his core at those calculating eyes.

"How are you, Mr Mitchell?" the man asked casually, as if striking up a conversation at a bus stop.

"Not so great," he responded, not at all surprised at being accurately named.

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that," the man said with a smile. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Possibly." He took a not-too-wild stab in the dark. "You could start by telling me where George is."

The man looked away, his face still smiling. "Ah," he said.

"Where is he?" Mitchell demanded, quiet and dark.

The man turned back. "Safe," he said. "For now."

"What do you want?" Mitchell responded. "Money?"

At that the man laughed, a thin, insincere noise that made the vampire's skin crawl. "No," he chortled. "I don't think so."

"So what is it? What do you want?"

The man looked back, something wrong about his eyes. "You," he said simply. Then he turned, picked up his coat, and got to his feet with deliberately easy movements. A second man got out of the car in front of them and came round quickly to open the back passenger door. Then they both stood and waited. "Shall we?" the bald man gestured to the back of the car.

Mitchell hesitated. After all, he'd have to be pretty damn stupid to imagine that getting into that car was going to result in anything other than his death.

"Or I can return your friend to you," the man went on. "Piece by piece." Mitchell looked up at him. All humour, however false, had disappeared from his face, and his eyes were icy hard.

He got quickly to his feet. He knew a cruel man when he saw one, and didn't doubt for a second that this one was quite capable of carrying out a threat like that. He contemplated attacking him – briefly – killing this enigmatic annoyance right out on the street, forcing the driver to take him to wherever George was, and staging a dramatic daylight rescue. But life rarely was as easy as all that, and he guessed that at the very least both these men would be armed and quite capable of shooting him. Not fatal maybe, but still unpleasant and debilitating. At least if he went quietly then he might be able to spare George's life a little bit longer, and they'd be in whatever the hell this situation was together.

He took two steps forward and took one last look around at freedom before ducking down and stepping into the car.


	10. Chapter 10

**And another warning! The story's getting darker... It's all suggestive, but just be warned. **

***

George was lying on a rough looking camp bed, eyes closed. Mitchell went into the room straight up to him. He was a mess. Arlie and his friends had left him with a black eye and a split lip, while some rough and ready first aid had sealed up what had obviously been quite a nasty gash on his hairline with two small pieces of steri-strip. Blood was crusted in his hair and streaked darkly down onto his collar.

Mitchell shook him gently and said his name, but got little response.

"George?" He shook him again.

George made a small noise and his eyes opened a crack from what was clearly not natural sleep.

" – tchell," he managed, his eyes closing again heavily. But he smiled slightly at the sight of his friend, and settled back into the pillow, breathing deeply, and unconscious again almost instantly.

"What have you done to him?" Mitchell demanded.

"Just a little something to keep him calm," the man said, standing with folded arms in the doorway. "He's quite highly strung, and we didn't want him hurting himself."

Mitchell placed a hand on George's arm, glad to see him, wishing it were in better circumstances. Then he turned away and stood up.

"And what about me?" he said. "Now that you've got me here, are you going to keep me calm as well?"

The man just smiled, and indicated the doorway, silently suggesting that it was time to leave.

Mitchell took one last look at his friend, satisfied that he was safe – for the moment anyway – and did as he was asked, leaving the room without complaint or further comment.

The man locked the door behind him, and then indicated the direction Mitchell should walk.

It was a dark corridor, and like the rest of the building, revealed very little of what its origins had been. Mitchell kept looking around him, trying to absorb as much information as possible, but he'd so far learnt very little from either his captors or his surroundings. The may who'd invited him into the car – who he now knew was called Kemp – had allowed him to see George, probably because it cost him very little while keeping his prisoner happy. But he'd told him nothing else about why he was being sought, and what he should expect from the hours ahead. Instead, he just kept telling him where he should go, not forcibly, but Mitchell was certainly left in no doubt that it wasn't really a request.

Eventually, he was taken out into a larger room, and he stopped in the doorway, amazed by what was laid out before him. There were people in the room, a lot of people, and machines and computers. Everything was buzzing away and busy, but most of the activity stopped when he came in, and the people turned to stare at him.

"Ah, at last!" came an exuberant voice from in front of him. "Mr Mitchell. Do come in and join us!"

His eyes adjusted quickly to the light, and he picked out the man coming towards him, looked to be in his late 50s perhaps, not terribly tall, but with black, black hair that was showing only the merest signs of graying. He had his hands out in welcome.

"Come and sit down," he re-iterated.

Mitchell looked around without the foggiest idea what was going on. But for lack of a better alternative, he did what the man asked and walked over to the seat he'd been talking about, though he didn't sit in it.

The man came up to him, looking him up and down, obviously cataloging details and first impressions. "I'm Professor Jadat," he introduced himself, holding out a hand, which Mitchell looked at, but didn't take. The professor took the hand back quickly. "You're probably wondering why you're here?"

"It's high up my list," Mitchell admitted

"Have a seat, and I'll tell you," Jadat said placidly.

Mitchell just folded his arms across his chest stubbornly.

"I assure you this will go much easier for everyone if you do as I ask," the professor told him.

"You mean it will go easier for you," Mitchell countered. "I have a suspicious feeling that George and I aren't going to find this easy at all."

"Your friend," Jadat nodded. "You've been to see him? My colleagues very probably saved his life the other night, you know. I' d have thought you might have said thank you."

"I'd have said thank you if you'd saved his life and then let him go. It's hardly charity to deliver a man from the jaws of danger and then drug him and lock him up!"

"Mm," the professor walked away from him towards the lab equipment, slowly, deliberately. "Maybe if he was a man I might agree with you. But your friend isn't human, Mr Mitchell. I don't really think the same rules apply."

Mitchell didn't say anything, didn't deny or confirm anything.

"And he's not the only one, is he?" Jadat continued. "Those people who were attacking him can hardly be classified as human either. In fact," he picked something up from a table, but kept it out of sight as he turned back to the vampire. "They can't even be classified as alive." He started to walk back with the same deliberate gait. "And nor can you." As he got closer, he pulled out the item that he was concealing, a metal cross, around 10 inches long, and pushed it towards Mitchell.

The vampire cowered back, instantly feeling the shock and power of belief overcoming him, the light shining on his dark soul, the pain of devotion. He stumbled backwards, his knees hitting the metal chair and sending him tumbling down into it hard. Then he felt the power of the cross diminish, and risked a look from behind his arm.

Jadat had lowered the cross, and was looking at him with interest. In fact, everyone in the room was watching him with what Mitchell regarded as really rather too much interest.

"Fascinating," Jadat said eventually. "I'm not sure if I'm more curious at your reaction, or terrified at the prospect that it seems to prove the existence of a divine force controlling us from on high." He watched Mitchell glance around the room "Oh, you'll forgive my colleagues," he said. "You're our first vampire, Mr Mitchell. They're all very curious about you. We don't usually deal with your type."

"Really," Mitchell said gruffly, trying to get back some of his dignity. "So what type do you normally deal with?" His tone was sarcastic, because at this point in time, he didn't really care what they wanted or what their excuses were. He now just wanted away.

"Werewolves," Jadat explained. "All our work has rather exclusively been concerned with werewolves so far. You'll be a useful addition." He nodded to someone standing out of Mitchell's view, and a young lady came forward, walking up to the chair, where she started working on some straps intended to hold the occupier of the chair in place. Mitchell could sense her fluttering heartbeats. She was scared, terrified to be this close to him, though she barely showed it outwardly. She glanced at him as she tied his arms down, but he didn't struggle; what was the point? Then she moved to the other side.

Jadat kept the cross handy until she had finished her work, and then he ushered forward some of the other people in the room. "You don't mind if they take a few samples do you?" he asked ironically, as a man in a white coat came up to Mitchell and without pausing, jabbed a needle into his vein. Mitchell barely felt it, but watched in fascination as he clicked a glass blood suction vial onto the end, which his blood instantly spurted into. He glanced away from it.

"Do I have a choice?" he spat back.

Jadat conceded the point with a gentle inflection of his head. "Not much," he admitted. "But this gives us a chance to talk," he went on.

"About what?"

"Well aren't you curious? Don't you want to know what we're after, why we're going to all this bother?"

"Since you're clearly so eager to share," Mitchell said, as the man drew a second vial, and then scurried away. "Why not?"

Jadat's expression changed then, and Mitchell saw clearly the mask that he had been wearing fall away and crumble on the floor. The eyes it left him with were cold, monstrous. Haunted.

"My little daughter," he said quietly. "Was killed some years ago. People actually said to me at the time that it was justice, some people anyway. I'm a medical researcher, Mr Mitchell. I carry experiments on animals as part of my work. It's unpopular, but necessary for the survival of the human race. The police reported that my daughter, only 14, had been killed by an animal. I saw her in the morgue, what was left of her."

He looked down as he said this, then seemed to recover himself quickly and began to pace. "That was 10 years ago, she'd be 24 now, a young woman." He smiled. "But I never believe what the police said, that it must have been a dog of some sort." He stopped pacing and looked at Mitchell. "There are no dogs in this country that could have done that. So I started searching, researching – it is my specialty after all – trying to find out what had happened. What had killed her. And it took a long time, over a year in fact, until I learnt of a similar incident at the other side of the country, in Devon. I traveled down and listened to witness statements about some large dog-like animal which had appeared from nowhere and dragged off a teenager who had been camping with friends in the woods."

He stopped pacing again. "It had been a full moon," he said, as if that fact were a revelation. "So I broadened my search, began to read myths and legends and horror stories, the blackest tales humanity has ever produced, and I began to believe in the existence of monsters. And once you've taken that leap, once you've had that personal moment of being, of clarity, the rest becomes easy. Well – relatively easy. It took us months, 6, 7 full moons, but we got one." He smiled. "We caught our very first werewolf."

"And what did you do once you had one?" Mitchell wondered. "Take out your revenge on whoever it was – even if they had nothing to do with what had happened to your daughter?"

"This wasn't about revenge," Jadat assured him angrily. "This was about science. I'm a scientist Mr Mitchell, and these creatures had something to tell science. They were completely unstudied, unclassified. Not a single experiment or observation had ever been made of a werewolf, not one. But we changed that. Unfortunately, that first one died before we could conclude our experiments, but we found another one a few months later, and he was much more helpful. We learned a lot from him. It was almost a shame to put him down."

Mitchell was horrified. "Put him down?" he whispered. "You killed him?"

"Well we could hardly let him back out to run around in the wild and kill people," he said with a small laugh.

"But these aren't animals you're talking about," Mitchell insisted. "Werewolves are people. They're people 27 and a half days out of every 28, they only transform for a few hours, they're only dangerous for one night a month, and that's it. The rest of the time they're people, living, breathing, thinking people."

"They're animals!" Jadat yelled back in fury. "All of them, animals. They don't deserve to walk on this earth, they're monsters. But they can still be useful to humankind, and that's what we did. Found ways to make them useful. Did you know that werewolves have the most remarkable immune system? They rarely seem to get ill. In fact, we're fairly certain that with a few more specimens we may well end up with a cure for all sorts of different diseases."

"And that's what they are to you? Specimens?"

"More or less. We look for them, take them in when they can. Usually all we do now is harvest their bone marrow, but there are always one or two new experiments we need to run each time."

"My God," Mitchell said. "And just how many people have you 'experimented' on?"

"How many werewolves?" The man shrugged. "10, maybe 11," he said, not seeming to care. "Mr Tullgren, who I believe you know, was our last. Unfortunately, he escaped from our secure facility before we could conclude matters."

"You mean before you could kill him. Well at least you finished the job. Is it satisfying to shoot a man in the back?"

The professor smiled. "You persist in calling them men," he said. "These are creatures, Mr Mitchell. Granted your friend seems to be making some sort of contribution to society, but all the others we've ever come across were vagrants, layabouts. They didn't work, they didn't pay taxes. They were wastrels, moving from one place to another killing and maiming and passing on their terrible infection." He came closer. "Can't you see that what we're doing is for the benefit of society? Can't you see that stopping these animals will save lives? Don't you think your friend's girlfriend would have been better off if we'd gotten to Mr Sands before he'd infected her? Don't you think George would have been better off if we'd got to Mr Tullgren before he'd passed it on to him."

"What?" Mitchell stopped him mid-flow.

The professor looked at his confused expression. "You didn't know?"

"Tully made George a werewolf?"

The professor smiled. "Still think he was worth saving?"

Mitchell blew out a breath at the revelation, wondering if George knew. Of course he did, he must know.

Suddenly an insight into their relationship opened up, and Mitchell saw for the first time the real reasoning behind why George had such complex feelings about Tully. Logically, knowing George as he did, he didn't think Tully had been up-front and honest about everything until pretty late on, or George would have mentioned it. In fact, he wondered if the revelation had been what prompted George to end their friendship, and perhaps even it had been the cause of those scratches on Tully's face. He closed his eyes.

But it didn't change his feelings about werewolves. They were only the animal for such a short period of time, a few heartbeats, a candle burning down. Being a werewolf didn't make Tully a wanker. Being a person did. People were every bit as much monsters. More so; they didn't have such an excuse.

"You can't hold him responsible for something that he won't even remember doing," Mitchell pointed out.

"Loss of memory is convenient," the professor said. "But it doesn't negate culpability. If you got drunk and killed someone – which you may well have done, or actually, you'd probably do it the other way round wouldn't you, kill them and then drink – you'd still go to jail for it."

"Then put them in jail!" Mitchell insisted. "You can't appoint yourself judge and executioner!"

"I can when society does nothing," he said angrily. "I can when they kill with impunity and have this perfect disguise, this complete body morphic experience that makes them entirely undetectable after they've done the act. Our laws aren't designed to deal with creatures like them. Or creatures like you. Society needs me to protect it."

"How noble," Mitchell scoffed.

The professor regarded him with cold eyes. "I'm not sure that a vampire is really qualified to sit and lecture me on nobility," he said.

"So what do you want from me?" Mitchell asked, looking straight at him. "Starting a crusade against vampires instead? Think you're the first? Do you think no one else has ever tried?"

"I think no one else has ever succeeded," he corrected. "Because they didn't know what they were doing."

Mitchell laughed. "Yeah, and you knew so much to take out those vampires the other night with bullets and guns. They're all up walking around again. You barely slowed them down."

"I only needed to slow them down," the professor said. "We hadn't been intending to take George that night. The actions of your friends rather forced our hand. But I wasn't after them, Mitchell, my colleagues had no intentions of killing them. I wanted the werewolf. I was after you."

"Why?"

He drew in a long breath, taking a few steps away and placing his hands together contemplatively. "I became aware of the existence of vampires several years ago," he began. "Some time after I'd started my experiments on werewolves. Seems that we had something in common, a shared dislike for lycanthropy. One of my experimentees told me that he'd been attacked by a group of vampires, that they'd almost killed him. I didn't believe him at first, well you don't with these creatures, but with a little further investigation, quite a thorough investigation I might add, your existence turned out to be more fact than fiction.

"Of course, I considered transferring my attentions, werewolves were, after all, only contributing so much to the furtherment of science, but you proved more problematic. Where werewolves were loners, homeless, no one to miss them, we quickly learnt that vampires moved in groups. They had strong social bonds and a sense of family and brotherhood that proved difficult to overcome. To hurt one is to hurt them all, it seemed, and the last thing I wanted to do was to put my staff at danger. So, I let you be."

Mitchell snorted. "You are such a hypocrite!" he said. "You claim to be worried about the effect werewolves have on society, their mindless killing? They're amateurs when compared with vampires."

"Oh, I know. And don't think that didn't burn. But you've got to know your limits, Mr Mitchell."

"Pick on the weak and defenseless instead of going up against a real problem? Some limits."

The professor ignored him. "Mr Tullgren," he said, "however, told us about a vampire that had moved away from his family group. About a vampire who was trying to live a more 'normal' life, who was trying to be human again. Well, I was fascinated, particularly when it turned out that he was living with a werewolf. There was an opportunity not to be missed! Because there is," he came back to Mitchell. "No one to miss you, is there Mr Mitchell? You and your werewolf friend support each other, but you have no family, no friends to speak of. Your neighbours who you so determinedly invited in for tea and cake, might wonder where you are, might even ring your bell when they don't see you for a few days. But no one will kick up a fuss if you don't come home. And the nurse, your friend's partner? Well, when she's back from her trip, we'll remove her like all the others, make sure she isn't in a position to hurt anyone else."

Mitchell felt cold at his calculating statement.

"But in the meantime," he turned away again, nodding again to one of his colleagues, who began to move forward. "I think you can be a lot of use to us. After all, as I said, we haven't seen a lot of your kind." He turned back, smiling oddly. "And we have so many questions."


	11. Chapter 11

Annie lost count of the number of times she rang Mitchell's phone. She rang it and rang it and rang it until she became sick of the sound of his dial tone ringing out and the first few words of his answer-phone message:

"Hi, this is Mitchell. Leave me a…"

She'd hung up each time before she could get any further, the final time, hanging up so violently that she feared she'd done damage to the phone.

Well, staying in the house wasn't doing her any good. It was now 2 o clock and she hadn't heard from anyone, not Nina, no one. The one time the phone had rung it had been an automated message asking her if she had a credit card. She'd just screamed obscenities at it and hung up. But now she was actually going to take action. Now she was going out.

She transported herself to the hospital, appearing outside the dark stone walls without anyone spotting her. She wasn't expecting to find any traces of either of the boys immediately, and her expectations weren't disappointed, but she still took time to look around the numerous wan faces hanging around the gates, mostly employees and patients stealing a quick smoke, before taking herself past the barriers and inside.

Annie hated the hospital. She'd only been there a couple of times, and one of those she'd been dead, so she didn't exactly have happy memories of the place. Darkness and death seemed to loom over everything, and she sensed hopelessness in her head everywhere she went. She didn't know how George and Mitchell could take it, day after day. But then again, maybe they weren't as attuned to misery as she was. Or maybe they'd just gotten used to it.

But today the feeling seemed so much worse. In fact, it was nearly overwhelming for her, hitting like a wave from the moment she stepped through the door. She staggered a little from the impact, feeling weak suddenly, and overcome.

She stopped, willing herself to let the sensation pass, but that didn't really work. It was like she could feel herself almost peeling away from reality, like a poster slowly detaching itself from a wall. It felt inevitable, like once the last bit of her Blue Tack had released its sticky hold, she would be tumbling away towards nothingness.

Annie tried to focus her eyes on something solid, determined not to give in, and it was then that she saw the other ghost that she'd come to see and she took several careful steps in his direction before calling his name.

"Geoffrey!"

The portly ghost turned, his face tightening noticeably when he saw her. But none the less, he stood and waiting patiently while she walked slowly towards him.

"I see you're back," he pointed out cheerlessly.

"Yeah," she said, then bent over as if winded. "Two of my friends have disappeared. They work here. I'm looking for them and I was wondering if you could help. Oh, look, d'you mind if I sit down?" she said, plonking herself in a nearby chair, and blowing out a breath as though she'd been exerting herself.

"Be my guest," he said. Then commented. "I have to say, my dear, you're not looking in the best of health."

She shot him a strange glance. "I'm a ghost," she said. "I don't have health."

He smiled at that. "My, we do have a lot to learn, don't we. Of course you have a health, it's just different from the health you had when you were alive. Ghosts need to take care of themselves as well, just like people do." He gave her a closer look up and down. "Mm," he went on. "Drifting into a non-corporeal state by the looks of things. You may have lost your centre."

"My what?" Annie demanded, still not believing a word of it.

"You're centre, your spiritual raison d'etre. Look, certain things keep you here in this form as you are now. There's usually one thing that's the strongest, not the thing you have to resolve, but something that was precious to you in your life, something that was important to who you were. Something that can continue to be important to you after you die."

"What are you talking about?"

Geoffrey looked a little sad suddenly, and took a step closer to her. "I am aware," he said. "Of how annoying I am. I'm always amused when people think others lack self-awareness. I know what I am, my dear. Punctilious, officious. But it's who I am. I was a foreman in life, you see, had to keep everyone in their place and that's why I'm here, doing what I do. I'm keeping them in place. And because it's important to me, it's what keeps me here so strongly. You'll have something as well. All corporeal ghosts do."

As her world continued to spin, Annie tried to make sense of what he was saying, tried to match what she knew already to the information he was delivering. She was still dithering over whether she believed him or not, when suddenly the thought of Gilbert flashed into her head.

His music.

Gilbert had had his music, it was his passion, his everything. That's why he'd been so visible, so strong. If what he was saying was true. It made sense.

And for her? Mitchell had said it: _"It's the house that keeps you here; it's me and George."_

"Oh my God!" truth suddenly hit her. "Can it be – something that you've only formed a connection with after you've died?"

"If it's important to you, if it reflects a large part of who you are."

Oh my God. With the boys gone her only connection to this world was the house. And she wasn't there.

"Keep going the way you're going," Geoffrey went on, "and you'll disappear altogether. If I were you I'd do something about that. Wouldn't want to be stuck floating around in the ether for all eternity. I'm told by a couple of people who've tried it, that it's quite the most boring thing you can think of."

"But my friends," Annie protested. "Can you help me find them?"

"Why would I be able to help you?" he asked pompously.

"Because you know one of them," she insisted. "Mitchell. He's a vampire. Works here as a cleaner. The other one is George. He's a porter."

"The werewolf. Yes I know them."

"Can you help me?"

He shook his head. "I haven't seen them."

"But you might have an idea!" she exclaimed, feeling the weakness almost overwhelm her. "You – you must know more about these things than I do." She got up, but then felt the world go in and out, like a light flickering. "Oh my god," she said.

Geoffrey just regarded her. "Fade away altogether," he warned.

"I've got to go," she exclaimed, all thoughts of finding Mitchell and George suddenly gone from her head. "I've got to go home."

"Yes, run along," Geoffrey said.

Annie staggered away, trying to focus on taking steps that would take her closer to the house. One step and then another step and then another.

"Run along," Geoffrey repeated behind her, as he watched her retreating form with just the smallest hint of a smile gracing his thin lips.


	12. Chapter 12

**Another warning!! This is probably the darkest chapter so far. Lots of angst and disturbing scenes. **

***

Mitchell had a hard time figuring it out at first, why they hadn't just killed him. He had, after all, been at their mercy more or less. They may not have known everything there was to know about vampires, but they knew enough to make his life unpleasant when they wanted to, and he was fairly certain that they could have taken a wild stab (or stake) in the dark at a reliable method of dusting him.

So why hadn't they?

They'd asked their questions, they'd taken their samples and their swabs, run their exams, taken his blood-pressure, his temperature, cut off locks of his hair and even tried to listen to his heart's non-existent beats. They must have had, he was pretty sure, everything they wanted.

So why not finish the job?

And then he got it, the horror of it hitting him so clearly and vibrantly, that he sank to the floor feeling weak.

He didn't know what time it was, the dark corridors and rooms giving no clue as to the state of the sun, but he guessed that the night was not far of, and with it the rising of the full moon.

He was sitting opposite George, who was still unconscious, still sleeping on the bed that Mitchell had found him on earlier. But he guessed that people so calculating, so cruelly indifferent, would have timed any medication to wear off when they needed it to. He didn't for a moment think them compassionate enough to keep George asleep as the change ripped through him, at least giving him some relief during what might have been, if they had their way, his last transformation.

Mitchell shut his eyes, squeezing them tight. Of course, what better way to get rid of him than this? It kept their hands clean of a vampire murder in case there were any supernatural repercussions, and probably offered some rare and thrilling bastard scientific experiment for them to watch and ponder at the same time.

Oh but this was – something new, some new level of torture that he was powerless to avoid. All he could do was sit and wait.

He didn't need to wait long.

George woke suddenly, his eyes opening. But if his actual return to consciousness was quick, his awareness was slow to return, and it was several minutes of blinking and longer eye shutting periods, before he finally made the attempt at greater movement. Then Mitchell saw him put a hand to his face, tentatively feeling his injuries.

"Are you alright?" Mitchell asked, without moving from where he was.

George started slightly, then he picked out his friend in the semi-darkness. "Mitchell?" He gingerly rolled himself upright, staring around. "Where are we?"

"I dunno," Mitchell said honestly. "Somewhere near the university I think. Do you remember what happened?"

George was looking a little pained, holding his side. "Yeah," he said resolutely. "Vampires."

"They got you good," Mitchell said with a slight, entirely humourless smile.

"They did," George agreed. "But then," he frowned. "Someone stopped them. There were these guys. They came and got me, got me out. Put me in a car." He broke off, his frown deepening. "But I don't remember what happened after that. He looked up at Mitchell. "What did they do? Why are you here?"

Mitchell considered him, wondering how long it was going to take him to work it out. "They captured you," he said simply. "And I think they've had you in here drugged the whole time since then. Then they captured me."

"Why?" George asked the million-dollar question.

"Curiosity," Mitchell said darkly. "Remember I told you there were people who tried to hunt people like you and me down?" George nodded. "Well these guys want to hunt us down and experiment on us. Their leader is a medical researcher who thinks we might have some scientific secrets to offer. He's been doing it for years, apparently, mostly on werewolves, but now he wants to start on vampires."

George looked disgusted. "Medical research?" he said. "Are you kidding? Oh shit!"

"What?"

"This must be the guy that Tully told me about. He said he was some university guy out to get us – well out to get werewolves anyway, he didn't mention the vampire thing." He sighed and put his hand to his face again, holding his forehead. "Why didn't I listen to him."

Mitchell looked at him, figuring that now was probably a good time to ask any remaining questions he had. "Why didn't you tell me about Tully?"

"I did," George protested. "Okay not everything, but…"

"Not about this," Mitchell corrected him. "About Tully making you what you are."

George's face went stony. "How do you know?"

"Because they told me, George. Because Tully told them. He was the last person they captured to experiment on. He told them everything."

"Jesus," George muttered. "You mean this is Tully's fault? All this, them finding us? And they killed him too?"

"Most likely," Mitchell said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"What did you want me to say?" George protested. "I was embarrassed! Here's this guy I've been knocking around with, who I've let into my life, whose opinions I've started to listen to over everyone else's and suddenly I find out that he's the reason I'm a monster in the first place. I didn't find out until the end anyway, and I just wanted him to go and to forget about it. It doesn't make much difference anyway. Once you've got this, you've got it, it's not like you can…"

He broke off suddenly, his eyes dropping to his hands, which he curled slowly into fists, and then relaxed.

"Mitchell," he whispered, horrified.

Mitchell scrambled to his feet.

"Mitchell," he looked up at him. "Mitchell I'm about to change."

"I know," Mitchell said quietly.

"You know!" George exclaimed, surging to his feet as well, and then staggering slightly. Mitchell moved forward to catch hold of him, but George pushed him away. "What do you mean you know! Did you tell them? Did you tell them you can't be in here with me?" He made to go closer to the door.

"They know too, George."

George stopped and he turned back, his eyes opened wide in disbelief and shock. "They locked you in here on purpose?"

Mitchell nodded. "I think it's pretty likely."

"Well they can't," George protested. "They can't. I won't." He backed away from Mitchell, looking around. "I won't let them."

"George, calm down."

"Calm down!" he yelled. "Are you kidding me? You know what's going to happen. You saw what happened to Herrick, you washed his blood off me in the morning. You want that to be you?"

"Of course not," Mitchell said. "But there's no way out, George. They've locked me in here to get rid of me. Then intend for you to kill me, and there's nothing we can do about it. We just have to let it happen."

"But – no," George protested, pulling away from his grip. "I'll – I'll do something about it." He looked around, searching the room. "I'll stop it."

He turned, finding the bed to be the only actual object in the room, and threw its mattress up. Then he flipped the frame over with a loud crash.

"George," Mitchell said, exasperated. "What are you doing?"

"Looking – for something," George said, grabbing the bed and trying to loosen one of the metal hooks that attached the sprung slats into the frame. "Something sharp."

"So that you can what?" Mitchell said.

"Kill myself," he stated. "Before I kill you."

Mitchell reached out and pulled him away from the bed, grabbing hold of his shirt, spinning him round, hurling him bodily into the opposite wall and pinning him there.

George cried out, mostly in shock at his friend's sudden ferocity.

"No you won't," Mitchell growled. "Because whatever strength you've got right now, I can still stop you. I am still stronger."

George tried to push him off, and the two of them struggled. But true to his word, the vampire kept him pinned to the wall, his abilities trumping George's. At least, until the change came.

Giving up, his face a mask of sorrow, George collapsed back. "But I can't," he sobbed out. "Mitchell, please don't make me."

"I've lived a hundred years, George," Mitchell said, holding him close. "And I've lived every minute. Few men ever get to see the things I've seen. But I never wanted to live forever, I never chose that. And if today is my day to die, then my only regret will be that someone is forcing you to be the instrument of that death. In fact if there were a stake handy, I'd do it myself. But there isn't, George, there's only this."

"But I won't get past it," George cried. "Not this as well. Not with everything else. Whatever these people want, whatever they do to me after, if I get out of here alive, this will be the thing…" he broke off, losing the ability to speak in his sorrow. "This will be what defines me," he finally managed to get out. "That I killed my best friend."

Mitchell pulled him into a hug, anguished at his sorrow, but accepting of his own fate. Calm.

Then suddenly, George pushed him away and said the very last thing Mitchell had been expecting.

"Feed from me," he said.

"What?" Mitchell was horrified. "No!"

"You can stop this from happening."

"George I just prevented you from killing yourself. I wasn't volunteering to take over the job."

"But you don't need to kill me," George protested decisively. "Just take some of my blood, enough to weaken it, to stop it from attacking you. You told me once that you'd learned how to bite people with precision. You said you could do it without barely leaving a mark, without the wound barely even showing, you said."

"I was talking about hiding it from the authorities," Mitchell stated firmly. "Not biting my friends."

"But it works the same. I should be able to lose up to – maybe 40% of my blood without permanent damage." George estimated. "And if it's a small wound, it won't bleed much. Bite me now, then when I change back, find a way to get me to a hospital. They'll fix me up. Nina will help me recover. We'll all go back to the house, and it will be just like it was before."

At his appealing face, Mitchell turned away, unable to look at him.

"You stopped killing people, Mitchell," George went on, his desperation hardening into barely-contained anger. "You haven't lost the ability to feed. I killed for you. Do this one thing for me!"

The vampire shook his head. "You don't know what you're asking. It's not like a tap you can just turn on and off. This is life you're talking about. I could just as easily kill you, and do you think I could live with that? Besides, the wolf is much stronger than you are in human form. I'd have to take so much blood to weaken it, you'd never survive when you changed back. There's no way I can guess where to stop."

"Well then, you'd better figure it out!" George exclaimed. "Because if you can't do this, then I will kill you, just as certainly as you are standing in front of me. And if I kill you Mitchell, then everything changes, everything. But do this now, then we have a chance, we can keep what we have. We can stop them from taking it away from us."

Distracted by his words, and looking away from him, Mitchell was totally unprepared for the first surge of the curse that struck George as he stood there. His friend screamed, unable to help himself and jackknifed painfully, dropping to his knees. Mitchell grabbed him and went down as well, conflicted, horrified by the options standing stark in front of him.

George scrabbled numbly at the back of his shirt, trying to pull it off over his head, presumably to have fewer restrictions on his body as he changed. Mitchell helped him, flinching when the shirt came off to reveal a track of dark bruises mottling his friend's skin. He remembered Arlie telling him so matter-of-factly how he'd held George while the other vampires had taken turns.

Now shirtless, the werewolf looked up, agony on his face, his muscles clenched, his very being trembling with the effort of what he was enduring.

"I can't – stop it," he panted out, grabbing at him. "Mitchell – please." He shrieked again, his head jerking backwards as an awful crack rang out from his spine. He was clearly using every ounce of strength he had to hold the transformation back as long as he could, but without much success, and the effort was paining him, drawing out the process, elongating his own suffering. "Please," he gasped. "If you were ever my friend - do this - one thing. Don't let me kill you. Please!"

Unable to meet his eyes, Mitchell looked down, more conflicted than he'd ever been before in his life. More so even than when Herrick had offered him the choice of becoming a vampire to save his own men. At least that had been noble, or at least had the semblance of a choice that could be looked back upon with some pride. Could this? Could he endure the memory if he made this choice?

Hearing George stifle another scream, something clicked inside of him, and his eyes flared open, inky black, eyes of the devil. He sucked in a breath, feeling his teeth sharpen and point in his mouth. Then he surged forward, trying not to think, trying only to see the neck and the veins and the blood. And he bit.

George made a noise like someone exhaling air when they jumped into a pool of frigid water, and it must have been, Mitchell mused, as the blood swirled round his tongue, rather like when a woman was in the throws of giving birth, and someone gave her an injection. That sudden shock of pain was so out of place somehow, with everything else that she was going through. His teeth piercing George's skin would have caused him so little pain really, in comparison to what his body was trying to do to him. But he still felt it, his hands gripping Mitchell on his back, his fingers digging in through his leather jacket.

His blood was hot, unnaturally hot, and bitter, it tasted wrong. Part of Mitchell wanted to stop, but the part that didn't was stronger, and the urge overcame him: the urge to feed. And he drank and drank and drank, ignoring the voice that was screaming at him to let go, that he was killing his best friend.

But then George made another sound, a sigh almost, soft, but loud to Mitchell's ears so close to his mouth. It was a sigh of relief, the sound of someone sensing oblivion and opening his arms to welcome it.

His brown eyes flared open and the desire to feed left him immediately. He exploded backwards, letting go of his friend and wiping his blood from his lips. George looked at him, still on his knees, his expression one of surprise. His hand went to the left side of his neck, and he dragged his fingers down the neat wound that Mitchell had left, before holding them up and looking at the smudge of blood that had tracked down with them. Then the corners of his lips crept upwards in the semblance of a ghastly smile, and he folded to the ground unconscious.

Mitchell looked at him, horrified. What had he done? Oh God, what had he done? Had he gone too far; had he stopped in time? But then the transformation truly began, and all such questions became moot in the face of what was happening.

Mitchell had never been this close before: would likely never be again. And it was awful so immediate, so inescapable, like he was suffering it himself. He heard the bones breaking, actually heard tendons ripping from their tethers, ligaments popping over dislocating joints. He watched his friend's skin stretch and strain under the awful power of the transformation, amazed it didn't tear. He watched the hair sprout and grow from pores, claws force their way through his fingertips, his whole body change shape and flex and twist and shudder as the wolf dispossessed him.

And the smell of it rocked him, the animal, the raw, base, unnatural smell that he'd sensed in the blood now surrounded him and enveloped him and invaded his nostrils, turning his stomach and making it heave, until he scampered to the corner of the room and was sicker than he could remember being, sicker than he'd been certainly since he'd been human almost one hundred years before. And it was red with the blood of his friend, the sight of which just made him sicker until he was retching, bent double, pain shooting through him.

While behind him the transformation continued.

And it was only afterwards, after it was all over and Mitchell was sitting with his back to the door breathing in the combined rancid smells of wolf and vomit, watching George's animal other breathe weakly as it lay face down on the floor not moving, that he realized why it had all seemed so wrong, why it was so different from the other times when he'd witnessed the transformation.

It had been silent. Apart from the hideous sounds of bones splintering and flesh ripping beneath tortured skin, there had been nothing. None of the usual screams of agony, or beastly bellows, not a sound.

And in many ways, that had been the worst thing of all.


	13. Chapter 13

The odd, weak sensation seemed to grow for Annie every hour. Coming back to the house had helped a little, but without the boys, her fear and isolation got worse as she lost hope of ever seeing them again, or of ever finding out what had happened to them.

That night passed for her without sleep, without any revelations, and without anything changing, except that she became weaker. It felt like flu almost, or what she remembered flu being like, and by morning, she was on the couch, exhausted, almost unable to move.

The hours passed, minutes ticking tediously away with her hope. She felt the world slow, everything drawing out, elongating around her, stretching and dragging and pushing her down until she felt entirely disconnected. Until the couch became her, and she became it, and her very being seemed to melt away.

"Annie?"

She hadn't heard anyone come into the room, felt the sound of the voice was probably an illusion that she could ignore.

"Annie?"

The voice was louder, closer.

She moved her head for what felt like the first time in years, and looked up to see Nina looking down at her with concern.

"What is it?" the nurse was saying, looking her up and down. She was still wearing her coat, her bag sitting on the floor beside her. She'd obviously just walked in through the door.

Annie closed her eyes in what felt like slow motion, and tried to speak.

Nina crouched down to her level and placed a caring hand on her shoulder, her nursing instincts clearly kicking in. "Can I do anything to help?" she asked.

"It's the boys," Annie eventually managed to reply.

Nina's face creased with confusion. "What are you talking about?" she said.

Feeling strength suddenly creeping back into her, Annie tried to move. Her arms felt heavy, but they felt like her arms again. She tried to push herself up on the couch. "The boys have gone," she said with infinite sadness.

"Gone where?" Nina asked.

"I don't know," she said, tears pooling in her eyes. "They're just gone, Nina. They're just gone."

As she started to cry, Nina reached forward and pulled her into a hug, her comfort acting like a warm blanket to Annie, bringing back a spark of life to the ghost. "It's okay," she said. "Whatever's happened. It's okay."

"But it's not," Annie protested. "They disappeared, Nina."

Nina pulled back. "Okay, start at the beginning," she said. "Tell me what happened."

Annie swallowed her tears. "George didn't come home," she started, looking directly at Nina. "He didn't come home from work."

Nina was matter of fact. "When was this?" she said.

"Two nights ago," Annie, wiped away some tears. "Mitchell went looking for him but couldn't find him. He came home and said that some of his vampire friends had attacked George, but that they'd been stopped by some men. But those men had taken George somewhere, and no one knew where. And then yesterday, Mitchell went out looking for him again, and he didn't come home. And I went looking too, for both of them, and I phoned them and phoned them, but I can't find them. And they're just gone!"

"Okay," Nina said again. "And the fact that they're gone – does that effect you?"

Annie looked confused. "What do you mean?" she said.

"Well," Nina looked her up and down. "You look quite pale," she said. "Or paler than normal, and sort of," she sat back a little, tilting her head to the side. "Sort of see-through," she concluded.

Annie wiped away her remaining tears with the palms of her hands and looked down at herself. Nina was right. She was disappearing.

"Oh God," she said, getting scared and standing up. "Mitchell told me," she exclaimed. "He told me that what was keeping me here, what was holding me together was my connection to them, their friendship. His and George's. I should have passed on weeks ago, but I didn't. My loyalty to them kept me here. But now that they're gone, I don't belong here any more. I'll drift away. There's nothing to keep me solid any more!"

Nina stood up too. "No," she said firmly. "I'll keep you here."

Annie gave her what almost amounted to a scathing look. "But I don't have any connection to you," she protested. "I don't know you well enough. You're just a passing moment for me, a shadow of friendship."

"Then let's change that," Nina said. "Because if we're going to find out what happened to the boys, then I think I'm going to need your help."

"Okay," Annie said, taking that in and considering it to be a sound judgment. "Um, okay. My first boyfriend's name was Stuart. He was ginger."

"Really?" Nina looked surprised, but Annie gave her a look as if to say, 'don't start' so she hurried herself on. "Um, mine was called Peter," she chipped in. "He wasn't ginger."

Annie rolled her eyes. "I have two sisters," she went on quickly.

"I have a brother," Nina responded. "He's called Michael and he works as an accountant in London. He'd loaded, married to a lawyer. They have a flat overlooking the Thames."

"I studied design at university," Annie said. "I wanted to be a fashion designer, and was going to call my company 'Dresses etc'."

"Oh, I wanted to be a ballet dancer when I was growing up," Nina threw out. "But I was too short and had to settle for medicine."

Annie looked down at herself, she was still faded. She looked back up. "This isn't working," she said.

"Okay," Nina said. "Maybe it needs to be more personal."

"More personal!" Annie exclaimed. "I just admitted to dating a ginger!"

"My last boyfriend tortured me," Nina stated suddenly, putting her hands together.

A horrified silence settled over the room.

"What?" Annie said eventually.

"He –tortured me," Nina went on, trying desperately to distance herself from hr own words. "Because he thought I was cheating on him."

"Oh my God!" Annie said.

Nina smiled very faintly, and looked her in the eye. "We have a connection," she assured her. "We have more in common than you think."

"He tortured you?"

She nodded, and indicated where she'd been hurt. "He told everyone it was an accident," she said. "And I was too – I let him get away with it, because I was scared. He was never punished. And I'll be scarred for life," she said.

Annie came spontaneously towards her and enveloped her in a hug, squeezing her tightly Nina shut her eyes, battling the darkness, but feeling incredibly close to Annie suddenly, incredibly connected.

After all, it was something she never talked about, not to anyone. She hadn't even told George. But somehow, revealing it to Annie, who had also suffered at the hands of a bully and a thug who'd claimed that he loved her, felt right. It made her feel less alone, less isolated. It made her feel more human.

When they pulled apart, she looked Annie up and down, then looked back up, smiling. "I think that whoever makes up the rules," she said. "Has decided that that was enough."

Annie looked down at herself, and realized she was right. She felt better, strength surging back into her. "You're right," she said, and looked at Nina. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "That must have been hard."

Nina nodded, squeezing out a sad smile. "I don't – tend to," she started, then said: "George doesn't know. I mean, he's seen the scars, obviously. But I told him that I couldn't tell him what had happened. And he's never pushed the issue. I wouldn't want him to think…"

"Oh, I won't say anything," Annie promised. "Not a word. Okay?"

"Okay."

"But thank you."

"Okay," Nina said back. She was clearly eager to move on from their awkward conversation. "What do you want to do now?"

Annie's face became resolute. "Now, she said. Then her face fell. "I haven't the foggiest."

"So the boys are gone," Nina prompted. "We know that. Do we think their disappearance is something natural, or supernatural?"

"Oh it's got to be supernatural," Annie stated. "I mean it has to be doesn't it. It's too much of a co-incidence."

"Do you think this has anything to do with that guy, Tully," Nina threw in.

"Yes," Annie said nodding decisively. "Mitchell said tat Tully had warned George about some guy who was looking for werewolves."

"And then Tully turns up dead at the hospital," Nina continued.

"And then he turns up dead, and then George disappears," Annie went on. "On the same day, so that can't be a coincidence."

"But then, what's the vampire angle?" Nina wondered. "Why has Mitchell disappeared too? Do you think those friends of his had anything to do with it?"

Annie shrugged. "I don't know."

"Isn't there someone in the supernatural world we could ask about all this?" Nina said. "There must be someone."

Annie grimaced. "That's just it. Mitchell's the one with all the dark, underworld contacts. I know hardly anyone, and the one person I tried to ask was no use at all."

"Who was that?"

"Oh just some ghost who lives at the hospital."

Nina considered that for a few seconds. "There are ghosts that live in the hospital?"

Annie nodded. "Oh yes. Quite a few according to Mitchell."

"Okay," Nina tried to shake off the idea that dead people had been watching her at work. She was trying to think. "What about other - 'special people'?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, other werewolves, vampires? I literally just started doing this, you're going to have to help me out."

"The other vampires are wankers," Annie said straight up. "They're killers, all of them, and they don't like Mitchell that much because he's living with me and George and not with them. And he's stopped drinking blood. And apart from you, Tully was the only other werewolf I'd met."

"So no help there. Well, what about conventional means?"

"Like what, the police or something? What would we say, our vampire and werewolf friends have been kidnapped?"

"No, I guess that wouldn't work," Nina seemed to slump slightly. "Well can we try and trace them somehow?"

"I don't see how." Annie said. "Not if we've no idea where to look. This is the problem, I just don't know where to start."

There was a sudden, quiet knocking on the front door, and both of them looked at each other, curious. Nina turned and crossed the hallway, glancing through the glass to see who it was, but unable to identify the blurred figure beyond.

She opened the door.

Standing on the doorstep was a young lady dressed in a hospital gown. Nina was amazed by the sight of her and was about to say something along the lines of: 'should you be out of bed?' when Annie crowded in behind her and beat her to it.

"Alice?" she exclaimed. "What on earth are you doing here?"

The woman, who had been looking nervous and uncertain at Nina's appearance behind the door, smiled when she saw her fellow ghost. "Annie," she said. "Oh thank goodness I found the house! That guy at the hospital, Geoffrey, he was going on about you being there, said you'd come to him asking for help in finding some friends."

"Yes," Annie said. "But he couldn't help me."

"Well maybe I can," Alice put in. "I saw something the other day."

"What?"

"I was outside trying to get beyond the hospital barriers," Alice went on. "I've been having problems leaving the hospital grounds, I'm not sure why. But I was near the entrance trying to leave, and not having much success, when I saw these guys having a discussion. There was a man with lots of curly black hair, quite Italian looking, wearing a leather jacket."

"That sounds like Mitchell," Nina said.

"What was he doing?" Annie asked.

"He was with this other guy," Alice said. "This balding guy wearing a suit. They were having some sort in intense conversation, and the whole set up looked a bit weird because they were beside this huge car. That's why I noticed it. The car was really out of place. Then they both got into the car together and drove off."

"Mitchell got into a car willingly with this man?" Nina asked, surprised.

"That's what it looked like," Alice said.

"Maybe they said they had George," Annie guessed. "That if he went with them, they wouldn't hurt him or something. Alice," she turned back to the other ghost. "Thank you so much for this, it's really helpful."

"Well, when Geoffrey said your friends had disappeared, I just wondered if what I'd seen had anything to do with it. It just didn't look right. And coming here gave me the motivation I needed to leave the hospital grounds, so it's been good for me too."

"Do you have any idea where they went, or what type of car it was or anything?" Annie asked her.

She shook her head. "Sorry, I'm not very good with cars," she said. "But I am with numbers. I can tell you the plate number."

"Really?"

"If that would be useful."

"Oh my God!" Annie exclaimed. "Hugely useful."

"But even if we know the plate," Nina said. "How will that help us? We don't have any connections to the police. We can't trace them."

"But my husband can," Alice said. "He's a traffic police officer."

The girls both looked at each other.

"But – you're dead Alice," Annie pointed out. "You can't talk to him."

Alice just smiled. "You never seen Ghost?" she said.


	14. Chapter 14

It took them just an hour.

Alice's husband was at home on compassionate leave. He was alone with his sorrow when Nina rang the doorbell, and he allowed her in, probably only because he was in a vulnerable state and couldn't reasonably think of anything else to do.

Nina had talked to him about his wife, and at Alice's insistence, had pretended to have psychic powers.

"Seriously," she said. "He always believed in that crap. He'd watch every programme he ever could about it, read every book going. He's convinced that there's an afterlife and that ghosts really exist."

"And you're not lying to him," Annie had pointed out.

"Not at all," Alice had chipped in.

"But I'm intruding on his grief," Nina complained. "It doesn't feel right."

"He'll get comfort out of it," Alice insisted. "And I'll stay with him afterwards. Surely he'll sense my presence once he's been warmed up to the idea?"

She glanced at Annie, who nodded gamely. "Probably. Owen sort of knew I was there when I was doing things around the house. I could say things to him, influence him."

"Look," Alice went on. "He's grieving right now, and I really feel for him. I wanted to make this connection anyway, but just couldn't think how to do it. Helping you guys – it's going to make me feel a lot better, like I didn't die for nothing."

So Nina had gone, with her message from the other world. Or actually, from right next to her, as Alice had gone in too, and was sitting beside her on the couch during the whole conversation.

"So – this is going to sound odd," Nina said, trying to rid herself of the screaming awkwardness. "But Alice has given me a message and it's something that I need to do for her, but I need your help with it."

"Anything," Steve had said, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'd do anything for Alice."

"Oh, I know you would sweetheart," Alice said from beside her. "Tell him that, Nina. Tell him I know."

When she left the house, Nina had felt dirty, like she needed to shower, but Annie had pounced on her almost instantly. "Did you get it?"

Nina held up the piece of paper. "It's registered to a Professor Jadat," she said. "He's a lecturer, a medical researcher who seems to have been quite controversial for his experiments."

They were walking along the street together, Annie looking over Nina's shoulder.

"He was in the news about 10 years ago after his daughter was killed in an animal attack."

"An animal attack? What type of animal attack?"

Nina shook her head. "The report wasn't clear. They thought it was some sort of dog. She was pretty well mutilated."

"Werewolf?" Annie guessed.

Nina shrugged. "Could be. Maybe that's why he's chasing around after werewolves now, if one killed his daughter."

"Okay, well where's the car now?"

"All he could find out is that it was picked up on the automatic registration recognition camera at a petrol station on Campbell Street two days ago."

"Campbell Street? That's near the university isn't it?"

"I think so," Nina said. "But that's where the trail ends."

"So we know this guy's in town," Annie said. "We can guess why he's chasing supernaturals, and we can presume that he's holed up somewhere near the university."

"But what do we do now?" Nina said. "Even if we can find him, how do we take him on? There's just two of us."

Annie stopped walking.

"What?" Nina asked.

"I think we should ask the vampires," she said.

"But I thought you said they were wankers who wouldn't help us," Nina said.

"Well – technically, yeah," Annie agreed. "But Mitchell said these guys hurt them when they took George. Really hurt them, that they'd be pissed about it. Maybe they'd be after some revenge."

"Yes but," Nina looked uncomfortable. "Taking advantage of a grieving man is one thing, Annie. Setting a troop of vampires loose on a bunch of scientists – it's not exactly right, is it? They'll kill them."

"You have a better suggestion?"

Nina sighed and stood there, hands on her hips.

"Look," Annie said. "This is war, Nina. This man, whoever he is, he's taken our friends, he's taken your lover. If we don't do this, I don't think we'll ever see them again. Chances are, they could be dead already. The vampires, they'll be able to help us track these guys down, and take them on. We've got this one chance. I think we have to take it."

The met each other's eyes, and Nina looked at the sky, hardly believing the world that she'd fallen into, what she'd become in such a short period of time.

She looked back at Annie.

"How do we persuade them," she said.

Annie smiled. "Leave that to me."

***

Mitchell was curious at first as to why they didn't come back for him. Nothing these people did surprised him, and he figured out long ago that everything they did was for a purpose. But he fretted over what that purpose was.

They'd left him in there all night with the transformed George, who didn't stir once through the hours of darkness. Mitchell was fairly convinced that he drunk too much when he'd bitten him, that the blood loss would kill his friend before any help could arrive. Because after all, what help was there? They were lost the two of them, alone in the darkness.

It was their own choice in many ways. They'd both chosen to be alone, to cut themselves off from their families, George from his actual blood relations, and Mitchell from his blood brothers. Then they'd chosen each other, seeking support, finding solace in another creature of darkness.

Mitchell had stayed where he was the whole night, cramped and stiff, and if he admitted it, scared that at any minute the beast was going to get up and see him and kill him. But it didn't. The close terror didn't manifest into anything more terrifying than his own guilt at biting George, and when the transformation reversed itself in the early hours of the morning, with the same agonizing precision, he cried a while, tears of intense sorrow that failed to wash away the pain.

After he'd changed back, his friend didn't regain consciousness, and when Mitchell cautiously moved to his side to feel his pulse, it was a fast flutter against his fingertips.

He righted the bed, and wrapping George in the blankets, lifted him back onto it carefully, gently. He didn't even stir. A deep stupour was common after the transformation, Mitchell knew that. But he knew also that this was different, that this was more than that.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and waited, with nothing else to do. The hours passed. Once, someone slid back the peep hole in the door and looked in, and Mitchell tensed himself, expecting a visitor. But no one came in, and the little hatch slid back again sharply, making him jump.

And that was it.

He now just had to sit there and resolve himself to the fact that he would probably have to watch George die. He would have to live with the knowledge that he was responsible for his death. In an effort to save his own skin, he'd killed one of the few beings that had ever done anything for him, ever shown him any kindness and loyalty. Ever been deserving of his friendship.

The thought crossed his mind briefly of bringing George over. But that wasn't going to help anything except make him feel less guilty. He didn't even know if it would work, he'd certainly never heard of a vampire/werewolf hybrid and couldn't imagine what such a creature would be like.

He felt George's pulse again. It was still fast. He felt his own. There was nothing.

No, better to let him go, to let fate and pissy luck run out and let him die after everything they'd been through together. Whatever guilt there was going to be, he'd just add it to the list. There were plenty of names on it already. George would just have to be another victim, another face, another lost soul.

Then he heard a scream.

It pulled him sharply out of his reverie, so sharply that he actually stood up and had walked to the door before he even realized what he was doing.

He stood there listening. There was another scream, and cries, and gunshots.

What the hell?

"Mitchell!"

He spun round, shocked at the voice behind him. It was Annie, oh gods it was Annie, and they flung themselves at each other, hugging desperately.

"Oh Mitchell, I thought you were dead!" she cried into his shoulder.

"I'm fine," he said relief washing him like summer rain. "I'm fine, I'm fine. But George isn't."

She drew back, wiping tears off her cheek with a sleeve, and seemed to notice the bed for the first time. "Oh God," she said. "What did they do to him?" she went over and put a hand on his cold clammy forehead, pushing back his hair.

"Nothing," Mitchell said. "It was me. I – I had to bite him. Feed from him."

"What?" Annie turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"They locked us in here together last night, and - it was the only way to stop the werewolf from killing me," Mitchell said quickly, going over to her. "He begged me to do it Annie, and I tried not to take too much, but…"

Her face changed, and she looked disgusted. But she stood up quickly. "I'll get Nina," she said, and vanished suddenly.

Mitchell stood there, feeling more alone suddenly then he had done since he'd been captured. He felt an absence of friendship, like what he'd done had truly made him evil.

A few minutes later there was a banging on the door.

"Mitchell?"

"Yes, we're in here!"

"Hold on," it was Nina. There was the sound of numerous bolts being drawn back, and trepidation at explaining himself to the nurse almost drowned out his curiosity as to the cause of the continuing screams and gunfire. Then the door swung open, and Nina came into view. "Hey," she said, coming forward and giving him a quick hug.

He returned it, saying nothing.

Then she pushed past him and went straight to her boyfriend.

"How much blood do you think he's lost?" she said, taking his pulse, and looking at her watch.

"I dunno," he said quietly.

"Has he woken up at all?"

"Not since he changed back."

She nodded, then set about further examining him.

Mitchell couldn't watch, stumbling out into the corridor where Annie was waiting.

She smiled faintly at him, and him back, then he was distracted by the noises from beyond her.

"What's going on?" he asked.

She looked a little guilty. "Your friend Arlie, "she said.

"What?"

"It's your friend," she said. "And the other vampires. They're – taking care of things."

"You brought the other vampires here?" he sounded as disgusted as she had a few minutes ago, but then Nina appeared out of the room again.

"Okay, we have to get out of here now," she said. "Help me with George. We'll get him to the car."


	15. Chapter 15

Sometimes events happen that are so dark and devastating that human emotions seem insufficient to come up with an appropriate reaction. Sometimes these things are man made, like train crashes, or acts of terrorism. Sometimes they are what are referred to euphemistically as 'acts of God', earthquakes, tsunamis, terrible hurricanes.

There is no out. The people caught up in these events simply have to cope with them the best they can. But people are resilient, and with help and support, even the most terrible events can be overcome, can be recovered from.

But when the people involved in those events are not human to start with, there the psychologists would lay down their pens and stop handing out helpful advice. There all experience goes off the track, and any outcomes are unexpected.

George had a blood transfusion at the hospital.

"O-negative?" said the doctor, looking at the chart and then smiling reassuringly at Nina. "Well, at least we've always got plenty of that lying around, ay?"

She'd smiled back, grateful for this gift of life, grateful that sometimes the human body can be so simply put back together. Three days later he was back home, weak, on the couch, but very alive, very George. His black eye began to fade to a yellowy purple, the cut in his forehead gave him no trouble, and she brought him soup and endless glasses of sugary drinks to try and strengthen him up.

"Yes," he'd pointed out. "But you're going to make all my teeth fall out."

"Then you'll be a toothless werewolf," she replied, kissing him on the forehead. "That might be a good thing, my love."

Mitchell stayed in his room, before George got back and after it, only coming out to make sneak attacks on the fridge at three am. The girls left him to it, fussing with the invalid, both slightly awkward now with the vampire, as if, in their minds, previously to this, he hadn't been capable of doing those things that vampires do. The faded bite mark on George's neck was a stark reminder, and a deeply unpleasant one, of what it was they were associating with. Mitchell was a killer, if he wanted, if he flicked the switch on his darkness.

"But I asked him to do it!" George insisted with feeling, when the subject came up. "I told him to do it. How can you hold him responsible for that? It's not like he took pleasure out of it. It's not like sucking on my neck was the highlight of his evening of captivity!"

"I'm pretty sure it made him sick," Nina dropped in.

"Did it?"

"From what I saw."

"Well there you go. He did this incredible thing for me, because I asked him to, and he's my friend, and now you're – you're acting like he's a monster or something."

"He drank your blood George. It's – weird," Annie pointed out.

"Yeah, and you're dead, and I'm a werewolf," he countered. "We do the things that make us what we are. Just because Mitchell doesn't, it doesn't mean he's stopped being a vampire. You've always known what he was, Annie." It was clear George would have gone on, but his short tirade seemed to tire him out, and the argument faded, like the volume on a stereo being turned suddenly down.

But it was enough for Nina to go and knock on Mitchell's door later that night, and tell him that his mood was bringing everyone down, and that he needed to come out. That they needed to be positive now. They needed to be in this together.

And that was enough to draw Mitchell back out again.

When he padded down to the kitchen on the Sunday lunchtime, George was asleep on the couch – as he was a lot – a book lying open on his chest, and the girls were in the kitchen, chatting in hushed voices.

"What's going on?" he asked, wondering in.

"Hey," Annie said, looking up, genuinely happy to see him – or perhaps just making an effort so that it looked that way. "Look who crawled out from under their stone."

"Yeah yeah," he said. "Any coffee?"

"Mm," she nodded. "If you make it yourself."

He looked at her, slightly stunned at her sudden refusal to make drinks, and feeling a stab of discomfort that she was indeedputting the cheery act on, that she might still be resenting his actions in the room with George. But after a few seconds, she just burst out laughing and got to her feet, heading for the kettle.

"So what were two talking about so conspiratorially?" he wondered, taking a seat beside Nina, who was eating a cheese sandwich.

"That," she said, indicating a paper that was lying open on the table.

Mitchell glanced down at it. _Gang violence feared in multiple killings_, it read.

"Jesus," he exclaimed, reading further. "That's how they're explaining it?"

_Notorious gang murderers were suspected of being behind a bloody shoot out in the university district, Thursday, police sources said today. The bodies of several men were discovered in a warehouse after reports of gunshots and explosions. They had all suffered what the sources have described as 'gangland executions'._

"Well that's a new one," he snorted. "Gangland executions? Arlie will be thrilled. He always wanted to be in a gang."

"How do you know Arlie?" Annie asked, turning back from the kettle. "You never mentioned him before."

Mitchell put the paper down again. "Arlie," he said. "Was a stockbroker in New York. I met him there in… 1926 I think. 27 maybe."

"What the hell were you doing in New York in 1927?" Nina demanded, taking a bite out of her sandwich.

"Oh, a little bit of this," he said. "A little bit of that. When the crash came in '29, I caught Arlie trying to do himself in – it was all the rage you know. But I persuaded him that there were – other options."

"It's strange," Annie said. "He doesn't sound American."

"Yes, you're right," Nina dropped in with quiet sarcasm. "_That's _the strange thing in all of this."

Mitchell shot her a mock-disdainful glance. "He came back to England with me straight after that," he explained to Annie. "And he's been here ever since. He just lost his accent."

"You didn't," Nina pointed out, smiling.

"How do you know?" Mitchell said, smiling back. "I could be French or something. This could all be put on."

"Well in that case, you do an Irish accent very well."

"How did the police not get suspicious at what happened in the warehouse?" Annie asked, returning to the table with Mitchell's coffee and sitting down again. "I mean they can't really have thought that those were gangland executions? They all had bite marks on their necks."

"They'll have someone inside," Mitchell said. "They always do."

"Someone like Herrick?"

"Someone like Herrick," he confirmed.

"Let's just be glad it's over," Nina said, holding out her hands .

"I'm not so sure it is," Mitchell said, taking a drink of his coffee. It had just a splash too much milk in it for his liking.

"What do you mean?" Annie said. "They were all killed, the guys in the place. The vampires killed all of them. They're not going to come after any of us again."

"Something's been bothering me about it all, though," Mitchell said. "They capture us, they try to get me to tell them about vampires and then they lock me in a room with a werewolf on a full moon. They knew what they were doing. I'm guessing they thought I'd either promise to tell them everything and beg them to let me out, or that I'd be killed. Either way, I don't think they'd have cared that much, and they would have just – well – let's just say they probably had other plans for George. But why leave us there? Why, when we'd both survived the night, why didn't they come and get me and ask me more questions? That's why they went to all that trouble. Or if they were going to kill us, then why not kill us? Why just leave us there? It doesn't make sense."

"What are you suggesting?" Nina wondered.

"I'm not sure I'm suggesting anything," Mitchell corrected her. "I'm just saying that something doesn't feel right about it."

"Like what?"

"Like they were – waiting for something. Or someone maybe."

"Maybe, as you said, they'd expected you to be killed so they hadn't thought about what to do in the morning."

"Maybe," Mitchell peered over the top of his coffee cup, thinking. "Maybe."


	16. Chapter 16

**Warning - some adult language in this chapter**

*****  
**

Someone knocked on the door of the slightly shabby looking corner terraced house. It was a pink house, the visitor noticed, a colour that was discordant with everything around it and which had all the aesthetic grace of a tower block topped by a mobile phone mast. It wasn't like the whole area lacked character, in fact there were some nice houses on the street, well, nice if you liked that sort of thing: the arse-end of Victorian suburbanism. But this house: this house was just pink, in the way that some houses were.

The girl who answered the door, could see who it was through the opaque windows, and the realization made her pause. In fact, she strongly considered not opening the door at all, and she had a good ten-second argument with herself about it, before finally relenting to the kinder half of her judgment.

The door slid open smoothly, revealing a late middle-aged woman, looking good for her years, and well dressed, hair carefully up in a complicated and exceedingly smooth design.

She returned the stare of the girl, and the two stood there eyeballing each other in silence.

"Nina," the woman said eventually.

"Mum," Nina returned, hiding her shock well, but unable to keep all the caustic edge from her voice. "What are you doing here?"

"I brought your phone," the woman said, holding out the mobile and pushing the door open and herself through the doorway when Nina took her hand away from it to reclaim her property.

"This isn't a good time!" Nina protested, backing up slightly to give her mother space, clearly unhappy but too surprised to put up an effective barricade.

Her mother ignored her, and looked around primly, clearly not impressed with what she was seeing in the open-plan hallway. Her face fell even further when George, dressed in his standard shabby clothes, turned off the TV and levered himself off the couch in the living room.

None the less, manners came first. "I'm Maggie Thwait," she said, holding out her hand and walking over to him. "Nina's mother."

"Uh, G – George Sands," he returned awkwardly, without designating his own relationship to Nina.

Mrs Thwait regarded him closely after loosing his hand. "You don't look well," she commented. "Have you seen a doctor?"

George looked past her searching out Nina, at a loss for what to say.

"George isn't long out the hospital," Nina came back into the conversation, walking round her mother briskly and positioning herself beside her boyfriend. "He had a – an accident a few days ago."

"Blood loss,' George explained in an off-hand way.

"I see," Mrs Thwait said, looking around again. "And this is your house is it?" she asked.

"I – um – yes it is," he confirmed, still confused. "I share it with some friends."

"Mother what are you doing here?" Nina said again.

"I told you," she said turning back. "I came to return your…"

"No I don't mean that, I mean what are you doing _here_? I never told you about this place. How did you find me?"

"The hospital told me where you were."

"The hospital?"

"Mm, I've been ringing your house for several days now and leaving messages. I even tried the hospital, but you never seemed to be there. Eventually I got worried and since you'd left your phone behind, I came down myself to find out where you were and return it to you. They told me that you were most likely at your boyfriend's house," at this she turned back to George. "And gave me this address."

Nina put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "So much for data protection," she muttered softly.

"You lied to me," her mother said bluntly.

"I never lied!" she protested.

"What did you do to Paul?"

"What did I do to _him_? Are you serious?"

"He was very upset."

Nina turned away, hands on her hips, doing a damn fine impression of being very upset herself.

"Who – who's Paul?" George asked, looking after her.

"Paul is an old boyfriend of my daughter's," Mrs Thwait told him eagerly. "They had a rather bumpy relationship."

"Bumpy?" Nina turned back on her mother. "Is that how you describe it now? Is that how you talk about me and him to other people? To your friends?"

"He said the two of you met on Tuesday night," Nina's mother addressed her, ignoring the questions. "That night you disappeared, when you said you were going out with some old friends, do you remember Nina? That night you didn't come home and I was going round the bend with worry."

"Please," she spat. "You haven't gone round the bend with worry for my sake your whole life."

"Didn't come home!" she exclaimed. "What was I to think?"

"I'm 27 years old mother, I don't need your permission to stay out all night any more."

"Maybe not, but when you're under my roof, I'm still allowed to know what you are doing. You weren't with friends, were you? You went to that wood up beyond the community centre. Paul saw you and he followed you. He said he was worried about you."

"Worried about me!" she was incredulous. "He was stalking me!"

"He's changed, Nina, he's not how he used to be."

"He's exactly how he used to be mother, and Tuesday night proved that more than anything."

"He said you attacked him."

Nina went quiet at that, glancing at George, who'd been turning his head this way and that as the two women argued, hardly knowing where to look or what to do. At that statement though, he flinched slightly.

"He said you became aggressive, that you, you…"

"What?" George prompted her.

She shot her eyes in his direction, then turned back to her daughter. "He says you hit him," she finished. "That you attacked him with a stick or a branch or something."

"He came at me out of the darkness," she said, justifying herself. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be there. He – he caught me at a really, really bad time. And I didn't hurt him, and believe me I did him a favour by doing what I did. I wanted to be alone. I - needed to be alone. And I couldn't be alone with him."

"Then you show up in the morning," Mrs Thwait spat the words. "Filthy, like you've been rolling in the mud or something."

"Well," Nina said lightly. "I forgot my wet wipes."

"Wet wipes?" her mother demanded incredulously.

"Very important," George put in.

"Mm, I'm beginning to see that," Nina said to him. "More than I thought."

"Look," Mrs Thwait held up her hands. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're involved in Nina, but I don't want anything to do with it. You've lied to me, you've become violent and unpredictable and… I don't know what you've become. I don't know who you are any more."

Nina's face tightened at the words, and at the internal decisions she was having to make in the heat of the argument. Then she reached out and took George's hand firmly. "I'm happy," she said decisively, turning back to her mother as though she were delivering life-changing news. She felt George's fingers curl around hers, felt his gentle touch of support and love and caring, and knew that her statement wasn't just calculated to annoy her mother. It was true. For what was possibly the first time in her life, despite their shitty, unconventional situation, she was truly happy. And she was in love. And she didn't care who knew it.

But the words didn't go down well.

"Oh my God," her mother said, putting her hands to her face. "Happy? Look," she took a step forward. "Whatever he's got you into, whether it's – it's drugs or a strange – cult or whatever it is you can still walk away from it. You can still make something with your life, Nina."

"It's not – drugs!" Nina exclaimed. "There is – something," she glanced at George. "But it's nothing like that. You always do this. You always show up when there's something about my life you're not happy about. When there's something you think is going to bring you and the family shame, but you never actually care. You're never actually there for me when I need you to be a mother."

"How dare you," her mother said quietly. "How dare you say that to me in front of him. After everything I've done for you. After all the opportunities you've had, and you chose to throw them in my face. Well, if that's how it's going to be, Nina, then you're on your own." She turned to go.

George suddenly spurred himself into action. "Look," he said, moving forwards. "I know it's none of my business…"

"No, it isn't," Mrs Thwait said sharply, turning back to him. "And you've done enough, don't you think?"

He smiled, shaking his head slightly. "You've no idea what our situation is," he told her.

"You're right, I don't," she agreed. "Because my daughter failed to even communicate to me that she was in a relationship."

"You've no idea who your daughter is," George retorted. "How incredible she is. How can you not see her for who she is, and for what she's achieved?"

"Don't tell me what I can and can't see," she said.

"No," he said. "Maybe you're right, and I'm not the one who should be telling you. But somebody needs to, because Nina's the most wonderful person I've ever met, and I don't know what I'd do without her. And maybe it isn't my place, but as her mother, maybe you should be a little more bothered about who she is as a human being, rather than things that have happened to her that she has no control over."

Mrs Thwait smiled and took a step towards him. "George," she said. "There are things about my daughter that you don't know, and when you find them out, you'll be out that door faster than you can think – though maybe that's not very fast," she snorted out a laugh. "That girl has been screwing up her whole life, and this is just another chapter. But for me, the book is closed, and I'm not interested in opening it up again." She took a few steps backwards towards the door. "I hope that you're very happy together," she said, then smiled again. "For the limited time that you're likely to have." She took one last long look at her daughter, then opened the door and was gone.

George turned back to Nina, his thoughts instantly for her. She was crying. It was the first time he'd ever seen her cry.

Wordlessly, he gathered her into his arms, kissing the top of her head and rocking her very gently from side to side as her tears soaked the front of his shirt, and her sobs vibrated through his chest.

Eventually he had to say: "Nina, I'm sorry, I don't mean to – but I need to sit down."

"Oh," she sniffed, pulling away from him, swallowing her tears. "Of course," she held onto either side of his waist as he moved them both to the couch and they sat down. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Just tired." He reached up and stroked strands of hair away from her face gently. "It's you I'm worried about."

She drew in a shuddering breath, biting her lip, tears starting again involuntarily in her eyes. She nodded, looking away from him, clearly trying not to cry but unable to stop herself.

He drew her back in to his embrace and just held her.

"You should have told me," he said softly. "I never even asked what happened when you went home. It went out of my head. I'm so sorry."

"There was too much else to think about," she sniffed. "It doesn't matter now."

"That guy, Paul, followed you out into the woods where you were going to change?"

He felt her nod. "He just appeared. I went crazy at him: grabbed this stick and just started smacking him with it. He tried to fight back, but I was too strong for him – this time," she added quietly. "Eventually he ran off. He was yelling at me, saying he was going to tell the police, have me arrested for assault and locked up. But I guess he didn't. He was gone just in time. I thought he was going to see me change. Thought the wolf might – pick up his scent and… But he got away. When I woke in the morning, I didn't want to risk running into him again, so I just went home, picked up the rest of my stuff and left. Got an early train. Turned out for the best."

"And Paul, he's…" George felt her stiffen suddenly, and broke off. He didn't need to say it. Part of him knew, and had known straight away from the earlier conversation that the man they'd been talking about had been the one who'd left her with scars on her belly. He didn't need to know details, not if she didn't want to talk about it. He was impressed by her restraint, truth be told. If someone had done something like that to him, he probably would have given in to the animal urge for revenge. It would have been simple enough in the heat of the moment. The fact that she hadn't allowed it to happen made him love her even more, if that were possible.

He kissed the top of her head again. "It's okay," he said. "You're okay Nina. You're safe here. Everything's going to be alright."

***

"I thought you'd be back."

Mitchell put his hands on the bar. "Yeah, well," he sighed. "Things left unsaid."

The barman wandered over, a little reluctantly Mitchell thought, and nodded to him.

"Pint," he acknowledged.

"Stella?"

Mitchell nodded.

"So," Arlie said, toying with his glass. "All's well that ends well."

"Sometimes," Mitchell agreed.

Arlie looked over at him. A Celtic design patterned the eye patch covering the gaping hole that was now his right eye-socket. "Jesus," he said. "Are you never happy about anything?"

"I guess I owe you some thanks," Mitchell acknowledged.

"Damn right you do," Arlie said, taking a swig of his whisky. "Still, it was as much revenge as anything else. The boys were pretty happy to be bringing the fight to those bastards. And I always say a bit of blood and carnage goes a long way towards keeping a gang of vicious killers happy."

Of course, the barman chose that particular point to return, and he placed the beer in front of Mitchell, rolling his eyes ever so slightly, and then bad a hasty retreat.

Arlie burst out laughing at the reaction, and Mitchell finally joined in.

"Ahh," Arlie said, as their laughter died away. "See, life isn't quite so bad."

"I'll take your word for it," Mitchell said, having a drink.

Arlie looked at him with a little smile on his lips. "Some of the boys are saying," he began. "That you actually fed from the werewolf."

Mitchell licked his lips. "Yeah," he admitted.

"Fuck!" Arlie said. "Really? What did it taste like? Was it as revolting as they say?"

"Pretty much."

Arlie made a disgusted noise, and shook himself slightly. "Rather you than me."

"Desperation," Mitchell said. "Those bastards locked us in a room together on a full moon."

"Jesus," Arlie said, but was still hung up on the whole feeding-from-a-werewolf thing. "So, have you noticed any lycanthropic tendencies coming out?" he asked. "Been licking yourself anywhere interesting?"

"Fuck off!" Mitchell said, amused and disgusted in the same heartbeat.

"Well, there could be some advantages," Arlie protested. "I'm just saying."

"Yeah well, don't go there," Mitchell told him. "Anyway, that's not what I came here to talk about."

"So talk."

Mitchell took another drink. "The guys," he said. "That you killed. I think it's possible that you missed the man at the top."

"What do you mean?"

"This guy, Arlie," all the humour faded out of him. "This guy, the brains behind the whole thing, he's different. It's not – pitchforks at the castle door anymore. This guy didn't want me dead, he wanted information. He wanted to know about vampires, everything about us: what we did, how we were made, what powers we had. He wanted to experiment on me. He was taking my blood and…"

"Taking your blood? What for?"

"Do tests on I think."

"Not like torturing you?"

"No, like a medical experiment. Like he was trying to find out information."

"For what purpose?"

"I dunno. But I don't like it."

"And you think we didn't get him?"

Mitchell shook his head. "I don't," he said. "After they stuck me in the room with George, they probably thought it would loosen my tongue and that I would want to be let out before he changed. I doubt it even entered their heads that I would be prepared to die rather than help them. And then after George changed, they were probably too scared to come and get me out the cell. He was out after I bit him, but they'd had experiences with werewolves before, I'm guessing, and they probably didn't want to risk it. And then in the morning, after he'd changed back, they still didn't come. And I think that was because the head guy wasn't there. I think he'd gone off somewhere, maybe he had an appointment somewhere he couldn't get out of, and the others didn't know what to do without him there. That's why they left us until you guys came."

Arlie considered his words. "So where do you think he is now?"

"I don't know" Mitchell admitted. "I've done a little investigating and I can't find him. He's been doing this for years, he said, mostly on werewolves, but now on vampires. It's the sort of stuff you'd want to keep away from prying eyes, particularly if you were ever going to use what you found out to further science for humanity in some way. You wouldn't want people knowing where you got all your dodgy info from. I'm guessing he's gotten good at hiding, and he will have gone deep underground now. Him and any of his other friends that weren't with him when you guys went in."

"Well," Arlie said. "If they show up in Bristol again, they'll regret it."

"I don't doubt it," Mitchell said with a smile. "Just watch your back."

"Aw, Mitchell, I didn't know you cared," Arlie mocked.

"Fuck off," he said, quietly laughing and getting stuck in to his pint again. Then he put it on the bar. "So," he said decisively, looking back at his friend.

"So," Arlie said back. "Another adventure in vamp land. Tune in next week for the next thrilling installment."

Mitchell flashed him a genuine smile, and held out a hand. Arlie gripped it and pulled him into a quick hug. Mitchell slapped him on the back. Then they drew apart.

"Touch George again, you'll lose more than an eye," Mitchell warned him.

Arlie shrugged. "Fair enough."

"I'll see you later," Mitchell said, turning to go.

"Oh, Mitchell," Arlie said arrestingly. "Before you go, one last thing."

"Yeah?"

"Give us a howl, won't you?"


	17. Chapter 17

**Epilogue**

"Just how many pizzas did you order?" George moaned as Mitchell dumped the warm cardboard boxes on the table and flipped open the lids to reveal the steaming contents.

"Enough for all of us," Mitchell told him.

"Yes, but how many's that?" George countered. "It's not like Annie's friend can eat or anything."

"George, stop fussing," Nina said, appearing behind Mitchell with her hands full of glasses and a bottle of red wine tucked under her armpit. She nudged one of the boxes aside and clunked the glasses down on the table. "Glasses," she said, putting the wine down as well. "Drink, do we need anything else?"

"Uh, plates," George pointed out, from his seated position on the couch.

"Plates?" Mitchell said incredulously. "For pizza?"

But Nina just nodded compliantly. "Plates," she confirmed, turning and heading back to the kitchen.

"Just how long are you planning on milking this invalid thing?" Mitchell mocked George gently.

George looked hurt. "What 'invalid' thing?" he whined. "I lost almost four pints of blood, Mitchell. You've obviously got the sucking power of a bloody Dyson!"

"Yeah," he said. "And let me tell you, it tasted foul and I'm never doing it again."

George looked even more hurt. "Like you're going to get the chance," he said primly.

"When you going back to work?" Mitchell asked, ignoring his tone.

"I'm signed off 'till Friday," he said huffily. "I'll see how I'm feeling then."

"Jesus, you going to spend another four days lying on that couch?"

"I might do!" he said, indignant.

"Well, I suppose you've got to build your strength up for the challenging task of pushing old ladies around the hospital in wheelchairs," Mitchell said, getting to his feet and reaching for a bit of pizza from across the table.

As George blustered, and failed to come up with a suitably cutting comeback, there was a knock on the door, and Annie appeared in their midst making them both jump slightly.

"She's here!" Annie shrieked excitedly.

"Yes, thank you for pointing that out," George sniped. "I wouldn't have been able to come to that conclusion on my own."

But Annie was too excited to even notice what he said, let alone respond to it, and clapping her hands together joyfully, she made off in the direction of the door.

"You got fleas or something?" the vampire asked him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well something's obviously biting your butt," Mitchell said. "What have you got to be in such a foul mood about?"

"It's nothing," George said, looking past him to where Annie was making squeeing noises and bouncing out the door.

"Come off it," Mitchell said. "You've been huffy ever since I got back."

"It's just," George took his glasses off. "It's – it's Nina," he said quietly. "I'm worried about her."

"She seems okay to me," Mitchell said, taking a bite out of his pizza, and chewing noisily.

"'Seems' can mean a lot of things," George pointed out.

"George, you have to stop worrying about things before they're actually worth worrying about," Mitchell said. "We've got enough going on without adding imaginary angst to our lives."

"It's not imaginary!" he protested. "Nina's very – "

"Very what?" she asked, coming back into the room with the plates, and dumping them on the floor beside the table. "Hm?" she looked at her boyfriend questioningly. "What am I?"

"He's worried about you," Mitchell dropped George in it, despite his friend's noises of protest.

"Are you?" she said, going up to him, with her hands on her hips.

"A – bit," he admitted. "You had a rough afternoon."

"Look," she squatted down in front of him. "Whatever happened with my mother, it's over now George. This is the life I want to be living."

"Really?" he asked. "So, if you could have chosen any life, living with a hospital porter who changed you into a werewolf, and then led you to become estranged from your family would have been top of the list?"

She slapped him lightly. "I mean I'm happy with this life," she corrected him. "Stop worrying, okay."

"That's what I said to him," Mitchell butted in again, chewing on his pizza. "He didn't listen to me either."

"Oh great," George complained. "Now you're ganging up on me."

"George," Nina smiled, leaning in and kissing him on the mouth. "We will always gang up on you. It's how we show our love."

"Alright, Nina you've met," Annie was saying behind them.

Nina got to her feet as the ghost ushered her new ghostly friend into the room. "Hi again, Alice," she said.

The two had a quick hug, and Alice looked around her with a nervous smile.

"This is Mitchell."

"How you doing?" Mitchell got to his feet and shook her hand affably.

"And this is George," Annie finished off.

The werewolf stood up and also offered Alice his hand.

"How are you?" she asked him. "Annie said you got hurt in the whole - thing."

"Oh – I'm…" he put his hand briefly to his neck. "Fine," he said. "Really."

"Good," she said.

"Well, make room on the couch George," Annie said, then spoke to Alice. "He's been practically living on that thing for the last four days."

"Probably means it's comfortable anyway," Alice said, smiling as George moved out to let her past.

"Are you stuck wearing a hospital gown forever?" he said, looking her up and down and pointing out the obvious.

Nina slapped him again, a bit less lightly this time.

"Ow!" he protested.

"Yeah," Alice answered, unconcerned by his lack of tact. "I died in the hospital, so…"

"Hard luck," Mitchell said sympathetically.

"Annie's always complaining about being stuck wearing the same thing," George went on.

"I am not!" she protested.

"You are," he countered. "I always thought it would be kind of – liberating to not have to think about what you were going to wear every day."

"You actually – think about what you're going to wear?" Annie spat back.

Mitchell chortled at that one. George never did have much dress sense.

"Yes well," George sighed. "If you're all finished, are we actually going to get on and watch this thing? The pizza's going cold."

"What are we watching?" Alice asked, already finding herself at ease with these people and their gentle friendships.

"Oh," Annie said excitedly. "Well I thought we could watch Die Hard," she turned towards the TV.

"Not again," George moaned, as Nina settled herself on the floor between his knees and unscrewed the top off the wine bottle to pour the living and undead occupants of the room a glass each.

"What about The Exorcist," Mitchell suggested. "It's been ages since we've had that on."

There was a chorus of no's at that, causing the vampire to hold up his hands.

"Let's just watch Casablanca," George suggested. "We never did watch it that time."

"That's because that woman turned out to be a crazy drunk and never ending up lending it to us," Mitchell pointed out.

"Yes, but I went out and bought it," George countered. "It was on special for £3.99."

"Oh yes!" Annie agreed with him. "Where is it?"

"Down beside that Westerns box set I think."

"Do you like old movies, Alice?" Nina wondered, putting some pizza on a plate and offering it to George.

"I – um – I've never really seen any," she admitted.

"Well you'll like this one," George told her, taking the plate. "Mitchell knocks over a chair in it."

"Really?" Nina exclaimed, then turned to Mitchell. "You were in Casablanca?"

The vampire smiled through a mouthful of pizza.

"Wow!" Alice said. "So we'll get to see you in this?"

"Well," Mitchell and George said at the same time.

"You can't actually see me," Mitchell went on. "Because vampires can't be caught on film, but I'll point out where I was standing."

"There we go," send Annie, who'd put the film in and pressed play. She scampered back to the couch and sat beside Alice.

"Let's just hope it's not vampire porn this time," George muttered.

"Vampire porn?" Nina asked, turning her head up towards him.

"It's a – long story," Mitchell put in hastily, reaching for another bit of pizza.

The menu for the film came up on the screen, and Annie reached for the remote control to get it to play.

And as the fanfare announced the start of the film, Mitchell's mind wandered briefly, and he thought of himself back there, of how he was in that time: back in the day as Herrick would have called it. How different everything had been. If anyone had said to him at that point that 50 – 60 years hence he would have been sitting down to watch the film with two ghosts and two werewolves, he would have thought them mad.

Time was an odd thing, the mother of all change.

What would he be doing 50 – 60 years down the line from now? What would any of them be doing? How many more Jadats and Kemps and Tullys and Arlies would they have to face? How many twists would their lives have taken?

He smiled. It didn't matter. Jadat had said to him that he was a vampire who had moved away from his family. But as he looked around at the others, at Annie whispering something to Alice, at George gently caressing the back of Nina's neck, he knew that this was his family. And as long as they had each other, it didn't matter how many people they had to face. They would always end up here. Together.

"So Mitchell," Annie was saying, drawing him back to present. "Tell us again how you got involved in this classic of a film?"

"Yeah, who did you bribe?" George scoffed.

"Well," Mitchell said, putting down the bit of semi-warm pizza he was holding, and scrubbing his hands on his trousers. "Actually, it's a bit of a funny story..."

**Fin**


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